Land of Shebaa Farms

RHONDA SPIVAK

I met Abdul (not his real name) by complete chance at the Ottawa airport last week. He was speaking Arabic and I heard the word Netanyahu mentioned. Later, I asked what he was saying.

"You want me to translate?" he asked. "Yes," I answered. He chuckled and, when we got to talking, he told me he was a Lebanese Christian who owned land near "the Golan Heights." He gave me his full name and telephone number, and let me take a photo of him, knowing I was a journalist who would write about him. But then, several days later in a telephone conversation, he begged me not to publish his name or his photo "because I want to be able to go back to my village and visit," and "there are still militias in Lebanon and I don't want any trouble."

He told me that his land is in "Shebaa Farms, near the Hermon mountain." He explained, "You know Shebaa Farms is the land that Israel got in the 1967 war, when it got the Golan Heights. Before the Six Day War, Shebaa Farms was controlled by Syria and then, once Israel got it, I couldn't go onto my land.... My family weren't allowed to go to our land. Israel built a fence there, so I can't go back to see it."

The history of Shebaa Farms is pretty tricky, but the long and the short of it is that, on the eve of the Six Day War, Syria had complete control of the 14 farms that make up Shebaa Farms. This was the case even though some earlier maps showed the farms being in Lebanon (others showed it in Syria). It is also the case that many of the residents of the area consider themselves Lebanese.

It is undisputed that the village of Shebaa (which is near the farms) is in Lebanon.

"I was born in Shebaa village in Lebanon and my parents' house was there. We owned [adjacent] land near the village, which we farmed. I have a big family and we used to grow wheat," said Abdul.

While everyone agreed that Shebaa was in Lebanon, there was not agreement about the adjacent farms. "That was a big argument," said Abdul.

Prior to 1967, it was quite common for Lebanese to own land in Syria and vice versa, and it was never very clear who owned land on the border.

"The land wasn't registered like it is [today]. We didn't have papers [deeds showing the country]," said Abdul.

In the 1950s, Syria and Lebanon set up a joint border committee, which recommended in 1964 that the Shebaa Farms be considered Lebanon. However, Syria and Lebanon never implemented any of the committee's recommendations, and Syria clearly administered the Shebaa Farms on the eve of the 1967 war, when Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria. (Lebanon didn't participate in the war.)

"When Israel took over the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms from Syria, all of the Lebanese owners of Shebaa Farms, like my family, got cut off from their land," said Abdul, meaning they couldn't farm it anymore. "But, there is no one from Syria who owns one centimetre of the Shebaa Farms – it's all Lebanese owners," he added.

He noted that his "big family" has all left Lebanon, as did many other Christian Lebanese.

"I can't get to my land [in Shebaa] and I can't sell it," Abdul said.

The question of ownership of Shebaa Farms became even more controversial in 2000, when Israel withdrew from Lebanon and the United Nations certified that Israel's withdrawal was complete. Lebanon claimed that, since Shebaa Farms was Lebanese, Israel must withdraw from there as well. Syria took a similar position (even though it is contrary to Syria's claim that the land is really Syrian). Hezbollah in Lebanon, which refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, has cited Israel's control of the Shebaa Farms as an excuse for its ongoing terrorist actions.

For decades, the international diplomatic community has repeatedly requested that Syria and Lebanon determine the exact boundary between them in the Shebaa Farms region and register the demarcated border with the UN. However, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has refused to do so until Israeli troops withdraw.

Nancy Soderberg, former U.S. ambassador to the UN has written: "When it was clear the Israelis were going to withdraw fully from Lebanon, Syrian and Lebanese officials fabricated the fiction that this small, sparsely populated area was part of Lebanon.... I and United Nations officials went into the map room in the United Nations and looked at all the maps.... All showed the Shebaa Farms clearly in Syria.

On June 21, 2008, DEBKA File claimed that then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said he was willing to hand the farms into UN custody. And what did Abdul tell me (without my raising the subject) about who he hoped would control his Shebaa Farm? "I prefer it to be you [Jews/Israel] rather than the Muslims [Syria or Lebanon]."

It is because of this last statement that Abdul pleaded with me to not publish his name or photo.

Rhonda Spivak is a Winnipeg freelance writer and the editor of the Jewish Post and News.

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