Some object to giving up the Golan on security grounds. “It will just tempt the Syrians into another war,” says Udi Margalit, a settler spokesman who was wounded in the 1973 war. But for others, the potential of cash compensation sounds just fine. “Give me my money and a new Volvo, and I won’t block peace,” says Yossi Reuven, a Golan Heights truck driver.
The financial cost to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government, and its American backers, could be staggering. After the Camp David accords the 7,000 Jewish settlers forced out of the Sinai in 1982 received an average of $50,000 each, made possible by U.S. aid. Given inflation, it could now cost $1 billion to reimburse Golan Jews for lost homes and businesses.
In any case, the bills won’t come due for a while. The breakthrough in Washington was only a beginning. Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s chief negotiator with Syria, said United Nations Resolution 242, with its land-for-peace formula, applies to the Golan Heights. Translation: Israel would consider exchanging some Golan territory for an end to the tensions with Syria. Previously, Israel refused any further givebacks after the 1982 Sinai evacuation. Syrian spokeswoman Bushra Kanafani called the Israeli move “encouraging.” But Rabin, buffeted by opponents in the Knesset and dissenters in his own Labor Party, was talking cautiously about very incremental change. “We will not give up the Golan Heights,” he said, “but that does not mean we have to cling to every single centimeter there.”
Golan settlers, meanwhile, are getting mobilized. They’ve chosen as their leader a top Labor politician, former army general Avigdor Kahalani. But, compared to the fiery West Bank settlers, the unmilitant Golanis seem lukewarm. “We are not religious, like in the West Bank,” says Shaul. The Heights have none of the West Bank’s Biblical significance. In opinion polls, a third of the residents even say a peace treaty deserves priority over their homesteads. And for the state, the 31 Golan settlements are an economic millstone, racking up nearly $300 million in operating losses that require a government bailout.
The restoration of warm U.S.-Israeli relations since Rabin’s election two months ago has helped win the country the resources to pay the costs of peace. With $6 billion in cash reserves and Washington’s approval for $10 billion more in loan guarantees, the Jewish state has never been more affluent. “Israel could pay compensation without having to ask Washington for more aid, although it would ask,” says a foreign diplomat in Tel Aviv.
For people who live elsewhere in Israel, giving up the Golan would amount to little more than losing the country’s best vineyards (Yarden and Gamla) and its sole ski resort (atop occupied Mount Hermon). As for most of the Golan’s 16,000 Druse-sect residents, who never joined the Palestinian intifada, they would welcome a return to Syrian sovereignty.
If Israel gives up some land, can Syria be trusted to keep the peace? President Hafez Assad has scrupulously honored the 1974 disengagement agreement brokered by Henry Kissinger. He has allowed hundreds of Syrian Jews to emigrate. Assad apparently is willing to consider demilitarization of the Heights, which have less tactical significance in the age of the missile; Syria’s Scuds don’t need to be within artillery range of Israeli targets. Israelis may conclude that their security doesn’t depend as heavily as it used to on retaining all of the high ground.
But nevertheless, an exodus from Golan would carry a human cost. “We won’t fight the government,” says Shaul. “But if we are forced to evacuate, it will mean suffering for us. There would be broken families and disturbed children. We would pay for it the rest of our lives.” Still, it’s a price many Israelis now think is worth paying.
