Posted on 07/30/2006 4:46:47 PM PDT by SJackson
The emergence of the Shaba Farms as a possible item in an agreement authorizing a multinational force for South Lebanon raises a number of issues of which not all the participants in the current negotiations may be aware. They go deep into the question of the very existence of Lebanon as a sovereign state.
What are the issues?
In the 1923 Anglo-French Demarcation Agreement, which set the borders between the British and French mandates in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, the area was included in Syria. The maps of the 1949 Israeli-Syrian Armistice Agreements similarly designated the area as Syrian.
In the 1967 Six Day War, the farms were occupied by the IDF as part of its conquest of the Golan Heights. Lebanon was not involved in that war, and Israel did not engage in any fighting against it.
At that time, no one - neither Syria nor Lebanon - claimed that the area was Lebanese.
IN THE negotiations leading to the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Lebanon for the first time raised its claim to the farms, but based on all previous historical documents and maps, the UN sided with the Israeli version, i.e. that this was Syrian territory and subject to future Israeli-Syrian negotiations. The Lebanese claim was used by Hizbullah to continue its resistance to "Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory."
Nobody, however, believes that even if the farms were handed over to Lebanon, Hizbullah would stop its armed activities which are, after all, aimed at the destruction of the "Zionist entity in occupied Palestine."
SO FAR this seems straightforward - until Syria enters the picture.
At the time of the 2000 Israeli withdrawal the UN asked Syria about its position on the issue. Damascus was in a quandary: On the one hand, this was obviously Syrian territory; on the other, if Syria conceded that the farms belong to Lebanon, there might be a chance of getting one more sliver of Arab territory out of Israeli hands.
Syria thus responded that whatever its former claims to the Shaba Farms, it now agreed to cede them to Lebanon.
But when the UN asked Damascus for a formal document stating that the area had indeed been legally transferred to Lebanon, Syria balked - and it has still not supplied such a document.
WHY? AT the root of the issue is the simple fact that up to this very day Syria has not accepted the legitimacy of the existence of a separate, sovereign Lebanese state. Lebanon was carved out by the French imperial powers in the 1920s as an attempt to create a pro-Western, Christian entity in the Levant - hence France's continuous solicitude for Lebanon, including its recent support for UN decisions calling on Syria to evacuate Lebanon.
This Syrian non-recognition of Lebanon as an independent state has consequences.
There are no formal diplomatic relations between the two countries; there is no Syrian ambassador in Beirut, no Lebanese ambassador in Damascus; and during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s, Syria's representative in Lebanon was the director of Syrian military intelligence (Ghazi Canaan, who eventually committed suicide in murky circumstances).
In Syrian textbooks Lebanon appears as part of "Greater Syria."
The Syrian refusal to supply a document confirming the ceding of the Shaba Farms to Lebanon is not a mere formality: Were Syria to issue such a document - clearly stating that the farms are part of Lebanon and not of Syria - this would mean Syria recognizes Lebanon as a separate, independent, sovereign state.
Syria has never accepted this, and has never made such a statement.
DIPLOMATS who are now concerned with a cessation of violence in South Lebanon and northern Israel should be aware of this conundrum, which is no mere formality.
If the Shaba Farms appears in any form as part of the deal, this should be accompanied by an unequivocal statement from Syria recognizing that the area belongs to the Republic of Lebanon.
It is my guess that the chances of such a statement are minimal. Without it, the international legitimacy of the agreement - and its subsequent implementation - may be extremely problematic.
The author is professor of political science at the Hebrew University.
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.
also Keywords 2006israelwar or WOT [War on Terror]
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This is just further evidence of the futility of giving away land in the hope of getting peace. Until 2000 there wsa never any reason to consider that territory Lebanese. Now that Israel has pulled out of all of Lebanon there is one more thing the enemy wants. This is typical, whatever Israel does is not enough. Yet Israel keeps doing it and now is going to give back this area. Do they seriously believe this will not trigger demands for something else?
Logically, from the Arab perspective, Israel and the Ba'athist 'Greater Syria' are already at war.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
I think you just wanted to use "Shlomo Avineri" in a sentence. ;)
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
A question if anyone knows... In the last few days I have read that Catholic France separated Lebanon from Syria in order to give the Christians of the area a nation so that they would not be swallowed up by Islam... what is the truth of this?
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
Don't mind at all. However, I am not well enough versed in current Lebanese politics to know the answers to your questions--which are very thoughtful.
I am thinking this evening about the media misinformation we have been fed since Clinton (and before), as well as about how the Arab world views the land in question...and how their practice of lying to infidels is situation normal. Thus can we rationally question who those people are that were killed and how they were killed, since the children were not handled carefully.
Finally, one thought keeps going over and over in my mind this evening: triangulation. On Friday Chavez signs an accord with Ahmedinejad, and now threatens an oil boycott. I now learn that the Christian majority in Lebanon is gone, and that Syria has never recognized Lebanon.
Is the attack on Israel in fact not exactly about Irael or Iranian nukes, but in fact a ploy to eliminate more of the non-Muslim influence in Lebanon, or, to increase the spiritual influence of Iran--against the house of Saud?
Sprry. Isreal.
Sorry. Don't have my glasses on.
greater syria also includes Israel and Jordan
A Neglected Topic from Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition
Oh no. Sykes-Picot, T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Congress in Damascus, and the French takeover of the Levant.
From your second link: "Egypt fits the definition of a nation; Greater Syria never has and never will. My views roughly correspond to those of William Yale, a member of the American commission sent to ascertain Syrian opinion in 1919, who noted that "the Moslems of Palestine and Syria have been united on a program which superficially has every sign of being Syrian nationalism, but which is basically Islamic."
And this: "In his epic work on the Arab revolt, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence describes his personal feelings and attitudes; especially his bitterness when his success was undone by the governments of the victorious powers. For Lawrence knew by November 1917, that all the Arab efforts and his own were to be betrayed. The aims of the Balfour declaration and the Sykes-Picot plan were to create a Jewish state in Palestine and partition the rest of Arabia between British and French colonial interests-which meant Rothschild interests. Although the full implications may not have dawned on Lawrence, the mere fact that the French were to get Syria was bad enough; hence his bitterness; but also his self-mortifying determination to entrench the Arabs in Damascus ahead of Allenby and the British Imperial forces at all costs to try to sabotage the conspiracy.
Lawrence at the head of the Arab armies had captured Damascus and installed a provisional Arab government with himself as head, deputizing for King Feisal. Three days later he left Damascus having established a semblance of order over which Feisal could stake his claim. The objective was an Arab State with Damascus as the capital. But soon this was overthrown by the French with considerable bloodshed. France was determined to stick by the Picot demands and annex the whole of Syria and this was done with force which the Arabs were unable to resist. Feisal, having been robbed and deposed of his kingdom in Syria was fobbed-off with Iraq and Lawrence was called back in 1921 to inspire and guide this make-shift policy. So after 400 years of Turkish rule, the Arabs were once again a force to be reckoned with in the modern world, though very much below the power and strength which Lawrence had intended for them.
After his efforts in the Colonial Office in 1921-22, working alongside Winston Churchill, he tendered his resignation once Feisal had been enthroned in Iraq.
snip
What is known however is that Lawrence had been under some pressure from Henry Williamson and others to meet the leaders of National Socialist Germany including Hitler.
'The new age must begin Hitler and Lawrence must meet' wrote Henry Williamson."
http://www.oswaldmosley.com/people/telawrence.html
This is true, However, you should be aware that Lebanon and its cities have always existed througout antiquity as a seperate entity and the lebanese people are a distinct nationality within its borders. This is true for the Christians and a good majority of the muslim population. There are alot of muslims in lebanon that cannot trace heritage to this land but rather neighbouring arab lands and its this shift in demographics that is causing angst within.
It should also be noted that the Christians of the area should be provided a nation that is theirs, this is not a bold statement becasue it is known fact that the Chrisitans of lebanon have occupied the area since the time of Jesus Christ. It is the ancestors of todays Christian Lebanese population who were amoungst the first converted to Chrisitanity, Who were they before this?....Pagans...Cananites..Phoenicians....as National Geographic studies have confirmed, non arab, People of the sea. I'm sure most of you who know lebanese chrisitans have a different way of life to their arab and muslim neighbours. Generations of commerical traders, terracing the mountains, educated. We do not belong in the desert and we do not wish islamisation upon us. It is not who we are, and its not where we will ever belong.
Hezbollah wishes that Lebanon was a fundamentilist Islamic State. It would be impossible to trace the backgrounds of every single one of these extremists. But i can tell you know, they do not share the same genetic make up as us christians, they were not here before us and the land of lebanon, regardless of all the mosques and radicals, always has been a chrisitian enclave within a sea of islam.
People ignore us lebanese chrisitians and shoot us with insults of arrogance, Like Israel, we stand up for our land, its not like we appeared in lebanon like islam and muslims appeared in the world. We were always there.
Many people forget that Islam has only been around since 6 or 7th century, Chrisitianity.... 6 ot 7 hundred years before that... The ancestors of those people.....1500-3000 years before that.
So before people start throwing comments about lebanon was created merely for the christians, i employ you to read up on your history, visit the national geographic website. THE CHRISTIANS WHO MADE LEBANON WHAT IT IS AND IT IS LEBANON THAT DEFINES WHO THE CHRISTIANS ARE.
You cannot throw away the history of our nation and give it to some muslims who want to wage war and cannot do anything properly in this world except cause trouble.
I PRAY FOR ALL LEBANESE PEOPLE EXCEPT HEZBOLLAH.
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