28 August 2008
SHEBAA, Lebanon: For a Middle Eastern flashpoint, the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms appear placid.
A hilltop UN post looks south over green trees in a deserted valley ringed by a dirt road and a fence. No goats graze the dry yellow grass on the craggy limestone slopes above.
On mountain peaks a few kilometers away, Israeli troops watch from fortified positions bristling with antennae.
Local Lebanese villagers insist the land has always been theirs, saying they have documents to prove it.
But the fate of this remote patch of land squeezed between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights is tangled up with indirect Syrian-Israeli peace talks, relations between Beirut and Damascus, and the future of Hizbullah as an armed force.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in June that "the time has come to deal with the Shebaa Farms issue."
Yet there has been no sign of a breakthrough on the Shebaa Farms, the Kafar Shuba Hills or Northern Ghajar, which are the last three Lebanese territories still occupied by Israel.
Faris Hamdan, a 42-year-old shepherd, said his family had lived on fertile farms in Shebaa before Israel captured the area in 1967 along with Syria's Golan Heights. "They grew wheat and lentils. They had figs, prickly pears, the goodness of God," he said.
Hamdan, sitting with some of his nine children outside his house, said he would return there if he ever had the chance.
"In winter my goats can't live here but down there they can live," he added. "Olives don't grow here, but they do there."
Hizbullah fighters, who captured three Israeli soldiers on the dirt road in 2000, have not attacked the occupiers of the Shebaa Farms since Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon. UN and Lebanese Armed Forces troops took control of the border region after that conflict.
Indian troops guarding the sector as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) have had to cope only with infiltrations by sheep, goats and the occasional herdsman.
"Incidents may take place of livestock crossing from one side to another. At times there are allegations of shepherds also crossing over," said the Indian commanding officer, Colonel Gurbir Pal Singh. "But those are few and far between."
A few meters north of the fence are blue-and-white UN barrels marking the hotly contested "Blue Line," drawn by the United Nations in 2000 when it ruled that Israel had completed its pullout from Lebanon after a 22-year occupation.
The Lebanese government has challenged this, saying that the Shebaa Farms and Kafar Shuba Hills belong to Lebanon. The government has also complained that Israeli troops have continued to occupy northern Ghajar since they captured the area during the 2006 war. Hizbullah has cited the need to liberate the three territories as one of the reasons they should remain armed.
Lebanon and Syria contend that the Shebaa Farms are part of Lebanon, but they have not demarcated their borders. Damascus said this month the Shebaa Farms boundary could only be drawn once Israel withdraws.
After the 2006 war, the UN sent cartographers to review the conflicting claims, but their conclusions have not been made public since they completed their work last year - a sign of the sensitivity of the issue.
During the conflict, the US-backed Lebanese government - seeking a diplomatic solution to trump Hizbullah's reliance on warfare - proposed Israel turn the area over to temporary UN control until Beirut and Damascus could clarify its status.
Israel has brushed off the idea. In the past the Jewish state has rejected Lebanon's claim to the Shebaa Farms, citing the UN view that they are part of the Golan Heights.
But Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, told Reuters that the territorial dispute can be raised in any future peace negotiations with Lebanon or Syria.
"We're willing to discuss in the framework of peace talks with Lebanon any issue they want to bring to the table.
"Obviously when we hold peace talks with the Syrians, and I hope we do have direct talks with the Syrians, then ultimately we have to agree to a border between our two countries, so both sides will put their territorial visions on the table," he said.
Israel and Syria have conducted indirect talks in Turkey this year, but full-fledged negotiations seem unlikely before there is a new US president and fresh Israeli leadership.
Hamdan, the shepherd, said villagers had agreed to stay away from the Shebaa Farms out of respect for the UN troops, but were determined to get it back - by force if diplomacy failed.
"If UNIFIL solves it, fine with us. If Hizbullah solves it, fine with us. In the end, we want our land," Hamdan said, wearing camouflage trousers and army boots.
The Shebaa Farms may be a symbol for Hizbullah resistance to Israeli occupation, but in the nearby Sunni Muslim village of Shebaa, some are leery of relying on the Shiite resistance movement.
"We don't want Hizbullah to liberate the Farms for us. We want the Lebanese state to liberate it peacefully," said Mohammed al-Masri, a 33-year-old businessman out shopping.
In contrast to most southern villages, no yellow Hizbullah flags fly here. Many shop windows carry portraits of a Sunni hero, slain former Premier Rafik Hariri, and his son Saad Hariri, whose Future Movement is at odds with Hizbullah.
"We are against Hizbullah's presence here. What is important for us is legitimacy and the Lebanese army and UNIFIL," Masri declared. "We've had enough wars and killing." - With The Daily Star
Copyright The Daily Star 2008.
