For 41 years, Israel has occupied land that has ideologically divided its own citizenry. The West Bank has its biblical landmarks and Gaza its squaller. (Comparing the two, it’s easy to understand why Israel removed troops and settlements from one and not the other.) The third is the Golan Heights, the mountain range stretching from the Sea of Galilee to Israel’s northern border and wedged between the Jewish state and Syria.
Often is left out of the discussion of the occupied territories Israel captured in the Six Day War, the Golan has a strictly strategic value: keeping Syria from firing down on its neighbor. When I was in Israel last summer, tensions between the two moved precariously close to war and everyone was ready for it. Israel even tempted Damascus with an air strike inside Syria a month later.
Could it be now that Israel and Syria are nearing a peace agreement that would include turning over the Golan?
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