The Shaba Farms sham

Shlomo Avineri:

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from southern Lebanon in 2000, Lebanon for the first time raised its claim to the farms, but based on all previous historical documents and maps, the UN sided with the Israeli version, i.e. that this was Syrian territory and subject to future Israeli-Syrian negotiations.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."

...

The Shaba farms sham is a pretext for the bad faith acts of Hezballah. While Israel may be willing to trade some Syrian territory to Lebanon for peace, the chances that it will buy peace are remote. Nasrallah has not and will not bargain in good faith on anything having to do with Israel. His religious and ethnic bigotry over ride any sense of fair dealing.