PM aide: Israel has no intention of giving Shaba Farms to Hezbollah

[Scurrilous]

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"Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's military secretary has recently asserted that Israel has no intention of transferring the Shaba Farms disputed border area to Hezbollah control.

Meir Kalifi, the military secretary, said this in a letter he formulated in response to a query made last week by attorney Itzhak Bam, of the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel.

Kalifi replied that the government has not expressed any willingness to withdraw from Shaba, known in Hebrew as Har Dov.

The legal forum had stated that the whole of the Golan Heights, including the Shaba Farms, is part of the State of Israel according to the 1981 Golan Heights Law which confirmed Israel's annexation of the strategic plateau."

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[azurnoir]

1. That i will believe

there is a better albeit slight chance Israel would give it Syria first, perhaps in the hope of Syria and Lebanon "dukeing" it out diplomatically or... over a small piece of land

[Scurrilous]

2. Shebaa Farms: key to stability?

Claimed by Lebanon and occupied by Israel, it will get new attention as the two countries' last remaining major dispute if a Hezbollah-Israeli prisoner swap is successful.


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"A tiny sliver of rugged mountainside wedged between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights is being reassessed by the United States and Israel as a potential key to stabilizing the last frontline in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Shebaa Farms, claimed by Lebanon and occupied by Israel since 1967, lies at the nexus of major developments in the Levant, including the potential disarming of Hezbollah, the progress of indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria, and future bilateral relations between Beirut and Damascus.



"For the Israelis, the Shebaa Farms is a bargaining position, part and parcel of the negotiations with Syria over the Golan Heights," says Timur Goksel, a university lecturer in Beirut and former official with the UN's south Lebanon peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL. "In Lebanon, it's part of Hezbollah's agenda , while some parties see its return as a prelude to the disarming of Hezbollah."

The Shebaa Farms is likely to come into sharper focus following the imminent prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah, in which the last Lebanese detainees held in Israeli jails will be exchanged for two Israeli soldiers, whose condition is unknown, captured by the Shiite group two years ago. A successful conclusion of the prisoner swap will leave the Israeli occupation of the Shebaa Farms as the last outstanding major dispute between Lebanon and Israel and, therefore, justification for Hezbollah to remain armed.

Until recently, Israel was reluctant to yield the Shebaa Farms, calculating that Hezbollah might find a new reason to keep its weapons. The United States sympathized with Israel's stance and made little effort to push the agenda.

But Israel, which is engaged in indirect peace talks with Syria, shifted position last month, saying it was now willing to pull out its troops and turn the Farms over to the jurisdiction of the United Nations. The move was given further impetus when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in mid-June that "the time has come to deal with the Shebaa Farms issue."

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