Syria to reclaim Golan from Israel

(IsraelNN.com) Syria is pumping more money into the border near the Golan Heights and plans to launch an English edition of its Golan newspaper as part of a strategy to take over the area.

Newspaper editor Ali Al-Zaher also plans to open up bureaus in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. His office is adorned with a photo of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah.The Popular Commission for the Liberation of Golan is providing financial support at Syrian universities for non-Jewish Golan residents.

The government requires the residents to return to the Golan Heights after completing their education in order to help stake a claim. The newspaper quoted an unnamed political analyst in Damascus as saying, "Inspired by Hizbullah's ability to resist the Israeli advance, the government wants more people to inhabit and know the region. The government saw that without popular resistance, the Israelis could easily send their tanks through the Golan on the road to Damascus." (ArutzSheva)

San Francisco Chronicle-March 6-2008:
"We believe that in the end what others obtain by force we will reobtain by force," said al-Zaher. "A small group of resistance men similar to Hezbollah could achieve victory in a Golan war."

As a visitor enters Ali al-Zaher's office, a photo of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's Shiite militant group, Hezbollah, looms prominently. A scribbled message scrawled across the picture praises al-Zaher's commitment to the struggle against Israel.

Al-Zaher, editor of the state-backed Golan newspaper, aims to remind readers of Syria's claim to the Golan Heights, a 690-square-mile plateau captured by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War.

After years of unsuccessful negotiations, al-Zaher and other experts say Syria has decided to ratchet up the pressure on Israel by following Hezbollah's example of expanding its political and military authority in southern Lebanon.

A political analyst in Damascus, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that Syrian leaders - emboldened by Hezbollah's surprising military strength against Israel during a monthlong war in 2006 - are increasing the nation's influence near the Golan border.

"Inspired by Hezbollah's ability to resist the Israeli advance, the government wants more people to inhabit and know the region," the analyst said. "The government saw that without popular resistance, the Israelis could easily send their tanks through the Golan on the road to Damascus" (some 30 miles from the Golan border).

While both Syria and Israel say they are ready to negotiate the territory's status, peace talks ended after a U.S.-brokered peace agreement was nearly reached in 2000. At that time, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to return most of the Golan to Syria in exchange for normalization of relations. But talks broke off after Syria insisted on returning to the entire pre-1967 war frontier, which included 328 feet where Israel would not cede control.

"A peace deal is only possible if we regain our full rights," President Bashar Assad told a Tunisian newspaper recently. "Complete rights and sovereignty on this land and nothing less."

For its part, Israel now conditions renewed dialogue on Syria severing ties with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the latter a militant group that governs the Gaza Strip and calls for the destruction of Israel.

Like many Golan natives, Mahel Awad, a 27-year-old student at Damascus University, is frustrated by the lack of negotiations.

"We support peace, but when is it going to happen?" he told a reporter in his dormitory room adorned with photos of Golan. "We are used to talk of negotiations, but at the end nothing materializes."

Continues here: San Francisco Chronicle