After failing to destroy Israel in her War for Independence, Syria violated the Armistice Agreement signed as a result of that war, some 400 times during the secular years 1949-1967.
140 Israelis were killed by Syrian fire in that period.

    Among the victims of Syrian aggression were the settlers at Gadot. Their settlement was destroyed by a 200 round Syrian artillery raid in April (of the secular year) 1967.

    Around the time of Israel's Independence Day, of that same year Egyptian troops began moving into the Sinai and massing near the Israeli border. Similar preparations were soon made by Syrian troops along the Golan Heights.

    Nasser ordered the UN Emergency Force, stationed in the Sinai since the previous war, to withdraw .

    Breaking the guarantees given previously to Israel, Secretary-General U Thant swiftly complied with the demand.

In this period, Commander of the Egyptian forces in the Sinai, General Mutragi, issued an Order of the Day. For greater effect it was broadcast on Cairo radio:

The Egyptian forces have taken up positions in accordance with our predetermined plans. The morale of our armed forces is very high, for this is the day they have so long been waiting for, for this holy war. (source from Battleground by S. Katz p. 10)

    Similar sentiments were voiced then by Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad:

Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.

    Since the capture of the Golan Heights, in the Six Day War, the Golan Heights has played a vital role in defending Israel.

Militarily, Israel's authority extends just over the crest-line of the range allowing observation of Syrian military movements and build-ups in peacetime. During war-time, the Golan crest acts as a defensive wall channeling a Syrian attack through two relatively small approaches. This is exactly what occurred in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Syrians attacked through the ''Valley of Tears'' gap in the north and over the apex of the shoulder of the volcanic hills in the south . Using every centimeter of the Golan terrain. 160 Israeli tanks barely managed to contain the more than 1,400 attacking Syrian tanks for 48 hours until the reserves began to arrive. Of the 119 Israeli soldiers that the Syrians captured in the first two days of fighting, 42 were later found murdered, their bodies mutilated. (end of quote)

    In contrast in an article that appeared in a local Jerusalem newspaper, Kol Habirah (14,Iyar, 5760 edition), it was reported that much of Israel's water supply is polluted. They reported, for example, that the main water source for the Gush Dan area, which includes Tel Aviv ,Bnei Brak and surrounding cities was found to contain dangerous and poisonous chemicals in amounts way above the permissible level. About 900 million meters of underground water resources were polluted by various poisons.

    The same article also contended that Jerusalem's water supply was being ruined by the nearly blind eye of the Palestinian Authority to environmental damage caused by their industries in the territories that they have conquered from Israel close to Jerusalem. Although no precise statistics were provided.

    In addition to the Golan's water based industry, a thriving agriculture has developed there, as a result of Israeli control. And so too has tourism.
    According to an article by Edward Graham, the numbers are 1,750,000 visitors to the Golan per year.

    One who favors concessions to Syria might wish to make the following point. That even though the Syrian regime to this day is a brutal dictatorship, for example, having carried out a mass massacre of an estimated ten thousand people of the Syrian city of Hama, perhaps they can be bribed to change their ways.

    The claim made is that we are not giving the Syrians a medal for virtue. We're only interested in finding a way to break the endless cycle of violence.

    One should answer that before World War 2 exactly the same claim was made when Hitler demanded that Czechoslovakia, cede key strategic territories to Germany or else there would be war. Czechoslovakia assured by the international community that this was the last of Hitler's demands and relying on international guarantees of aid in case of war reluctantly agreed to trade land for ''Peace''.

    The concession only strengthened Hitler's conviction that he could gain all his desires by military aggression. What the western world saw as price tag "to buy off" Hitler was viewed as a sign of weakness and an invitation for more violence by the bully psychological outlook of that evil man.

    Furthermore the concessions made by Czechoslovakia to Hitler made it close to impossible to defend the country when Germany later did invade the country nor did these concessions make the western world more willing to come to Czechoslovakia's aid in the time of crisis.

    The outcome was understandable. If a killer like Hitler could get a big chunk of a neighboring country without a fight, could a mere promise on paper not to take more land really deter additional stealing.

    Furthermore, although the current dictator of Syria does not have an Islamic ideology, Islam does play a role in the cultural background of Syria and Islam views it as virtue and not a vice, to make false peace treaties to weaken the people that they wish to conquer.

If Israel's Security and Economic Needs could be met ,is there any Moral Justification for Returning the Golan to Syria?

    For someone who believes in the Bible, the answer is simple. The Golan is part of the land conquered by Moses that G-d gave eternally to the Jewish people.

    G-d determined that it is moral for the Jews to have the Golan.

    For someone who has a different understanding of the Bible, than the one stated above, it should be pointed out that

• 1] Before World War 1 there was a Jewish settlement, named Bnei Yehuda that existed in that region.
  Political control of the Golan was neither in the hands of the Arabs or the Jews but rather it was part of the 400 year old Ottoman Empire.
• 2] After World War 1, the victors divided up the Ottoman Empire, and for reasons of power politics unconnected to morality, the territory was given over to the what would become the new Syrian state
• 3] Just like it was moral for the Victors in World War 1 to demand reparations from the guilty German-Ottoman aggressors, so too , should the Golan be viewed as a small fraction of the war reparations owed to Israel for repeated Syrian aggression. In fact, Israel's claim to reparations, is even greater because Israel was clearly the "victim", where in the case of World War 1, it might be argued that the victors shared some portion of the war guilt because of Serbian involvement in the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria.

If True Peace With Syria Could Be Obtained Despite All The Difficulties Stated Would this Be Desirable?

    Suprisingly to some, the answer is no!

    The reason is that if there were true peace, the numbers and influence of Israel's Arab population (currently about 20% of the population) would grow to such an extent that they would be able to eliminate the physical existence of Israel by a democratic vote or at least the Jewish character of the state.

    As it is, they already have the power in close elections to determine who gets in to power and they already have eliminated some of the Jewish elements of the state. And a number of important votes to transfer Israeli lands to the Arabs were decided based on the vote of the openly pro-Arafat Arab parties in Israel's legislature, the Knesset.

    Furthermore the increase of such a large population, hostile to Jewish values, would inevitably cause an erosion of the commitment of some Jews to Judaism. ( For Religious Jews , who are reading this article, see Chazon Ish on shviit siman 24 , as a backup to this claim.)

    In summary, True Peace, means the end of Israel.

    For the reader who is unsure, why it is desirable to maintain Jewish identity; on a pragmatic level, I'll answer that if you rob Jews of their Jewish identity many of them will flock to Communism and plague the world as Communists. In recent times, for example, the Communist Foreign Minister of Russia was a Jew, who officially, is called Primakov, but whose real or original name was Finkelstein.

To quote the internet article of Russia Reform Monitor, No. 493, (secular date) August 12, 1998
American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, D.C.

According to New York Times columnist William Safire, "Primakov is the Ukrainian word for 'stepson.' He adopted that name because the one he was born with -- Finkelstein -- was hardly useful to a KGB espionage agent under cover as a Pravda correspondent in the Arab Middle East.... Primakov was reportedly a KGB bag man delivering money to finance Palestinian terrorists, including George Habash, and was a key architect of Soviet support for Arab terrorist attacks against Israel, moderate Arabs, and the United States.