The Golan is lightly populated, rocky and not very productive. For the Syrians regaining it is mostly about honor. Honor is a vaporous thing. Plenty of states have signed treaties after having lost land. The question is whether Israel benefits more from a treaty with a dictator whose commitments may not outlive him, or by retaining strategic depth and the high ground. The Golan is particularly good at growing grapes for wine, and Muslims ought not drink alcohol anyway.
East Jerusalem is a different matter, but it should be recalled that Jordan`s army ethnically-cleansed the Jews from it in the 1948 war. The Jewish majority there is documented since the mid-19th c.; west Jerusalem was built to accommodate the overflow of the Jewish population.
Shabaa Farms at any rate is off the table. Nasrallah recently said his group wouldn`t rest till all "between the river and the sea" became Muslim-ruled again, and his group tells the Lebanese gov`t what to do. Shabaa Farms wouldn`t appease them. |
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