TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/040191/0401008.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.2 KB | 118 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 39

MIDDLE EAST

Does Land Still Buy Security?


A debate rages on whether Israel could safely return even a
demilitarized Golan Heights to Syria

By GEORGE J. CHURCH -- Reported by Mary McC. Fernandez/New York
and Robert Slater/Jerusalem


    In heresy there may be hope. Views have been voiced lately
in Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that
hard-liners on both sides damn as horrifying heresy. Those
views have, of course, been officially repudiated. Even so, the
mere fact that they could be uttered, out loud, indicates some
potential cracks in official stone walls.

    Heretic No. 1 is Bassam Abu Sharif, an adviser to P.L.O.
Chairman Yasser Arafat. In an interview televised in Britain,
Abu Sharif hinted that a Palestinian state might not have to
include every last bit of the West Bank; the implication was
that Israel might keep part of that occupied territory. The
P.L.O. disavowed any such idea, and Abu Sharif reportedly
offered to resign. Still, his words pointed to unconventional
thinking within the P.L.O.

    Heretics Nos. 2 and 3 are high-ranking Israelis. Speaking
in Washington, Health Minister Ehud Olmert, a confidant of
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, proclaimed Israel to be ready
for negotiations with Syria that could include even "the
territorial demands of the Syrians." At a farewell news
conference in Tel Aviv, Dan Shomron, who retires in April as
Israel's Chief of Staff, remarked cryptically that as part of
a possible "political agreement [that] involves
demilitarizations, arms limitations" and other items, "one can
speak about risk vs. territory."

    Israeli right-wingers had no doubt that both were hinting
at a long-unmentionable idea: giving up part or all of the
Golan Heights. Syrian artillery firing from that barren plateau
once kept northern Israel under intermittent bombardment.
Israel seized the heights during the Six Day War and ever since
has insisted that retaining the territory is essential to its
security. Jerusalem actually annexed the area in 1981.

    Shamir said he was "not happy with Olmert" and added that
in any negotiation "we shall say we do not agree to withdraw"
from the Golan. The small rightist Tehiya party threatened to
quit the government coalition if the idea of withdrawing was
so much as discussed in the Cabinet. Housing Minister Ariel
Sharon spoke of building enough apartments in the heights to
balloon the area's Jewish population from 11,000 to 31,000.
(About 15,000 non-Jews, mostly Druze, also  live there.)

    Israel nonetheless can expect renewed argument from
Washington. President Bush and his advisers hope to start a
movement toward Middle Eastern peace with an Israeli-Syrian
negotiation. Their view is that the heights should be returned
to Syrian sovereignty and civil administration, but that the
area should be demilitarized, patrolled by American troops or
an international force.

    The U.S. agrees that Israel cannot let Syrian tanks and
artillery move back into the heights. But otherwise officials
argue that possession of territory no longer contributes much
to security in a missile-armed age. As the gulf war proved, one
serious threat to Israel apart from ground attack is assault
by missiles that can whiz right over a buffer zone. Israel,
says a Bush adviser, needs "political security as opposed to
garrison security," and political security would be achieved by
a peace treaty with Syria. The same argument theoretically
would apply to the West Bank, but security is only one reason
for Israel's refusal to let go of that land; an equally
important one is the strong religious attachment many Jews feel
toward the biblical Judea and Samaria.

    Some Israeli military planners contend that the Golan and
West Bank have become more, not less, essential to security.
Without early-warning devices there, they assert, warheads
could hit Israel before the civilian population could be warned
to head for shelter. Even so, some military men speculate that
if Israel kept its early-warning devices and troops in numbers
sufficient to thwart a surprise Syrian attack, it could
withdraw partially, keeping only a slice of territory running
15.5 miles east from the pre-1967 border.

    That may be what Olmert had in mind in an interview with
TIME. He insisted that, far from wanting to give up the Golan,
he thought Israel should try to negotiate a Syrian
relinquishment of its claim. But he added, "I don't want to say
what is the fallback position." On the subject of talks, he
noted that while Syria, with Iraq out of the picture, has
become Israel's most dangerous enemy, its leaders "might now
change their position" as a result of participation in the gulf
war. "So let's test them. Let's sit at the table willing to
negotiate anything."

    His view is a long way from prevailing in Jerusalem -- let
alone Damascus, which in any talks is likely to insist on
recognition of its effectual control of Lebanon as well as
return of the Golan Heights. But the voices of Olmert and
like-minded thinkers are unlikely to be drowned out, because
they have logic on their side.