by aron heller
the associated press
Israel settlers on the Golan Heights are unimpressed — nay, uninterested — by the latest prospect of peace talks with Syria.
Syria, a last-minute attendee at the Annapolis parley, said peace would require Israel to return the Golan — something Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has signaled he is ready to do. But Israeli residnets of the Golan said they are’t concerned.
“This is a ritual that repeats itself and never leads to anything,” said Sammy Bar-Lev, the mayor of Katzrin, whose 7,500 residents makes it the largest Jewish town in the Golan. “We’re not dealing with this at all. If [Syria wants] peace, they will have to get used to the fact that the border is not changing.”
Unlike the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians have violently rejected Israeli rule, the Golan’s Jewish and Arab residents largely live in harmony. About 18,000 Israelis live in 33 communities alongside 17,000 Arabs, most of them Druze.
Syria created a stir in the international community when it did an about-face and sent a deputy foreign minister to Annapolis last week. The minister, incidentally, refused to shake hands with Israelis at the conference.
The sudden activity between Israel and Syria is nothing new to the Golan’s Arab and Jewish residents.
Penny Naftali, a Katzrin resident of 30 years, said she wasn’t concerned in the least about the future of her home.
“I’ve raised children here. I’ve raised grandchildren here. We’re not going anywhere,” she said. “This doesn’t bother us at all. If the time comes, we will know how to fight, but there is no need right now.”
Lital Ashtamkar, 27, who works at a steakhouse in the communal farm of Merom Golan, agreed, saying the talk among her clientele in recent days has been all about one topic — American comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s recent visit to Israel.
Israel captured the Golan Heights in 1967 and annexed it in 1981, though its sovereignty is not internationally recognized. Since the 1973 war, its border has been Israel’s most tranquil.
Tensions have been higher following an Israeli airstrike two months ago against a facility in northern Syria. Commercial satellite images have indicated a site for a future nuclear reactor might have been destroyed, but Syria has denied developing such a reactor.
Even so, Israeli officials have reported high-level talks between Israel and Damascus meant to sound out Syria on the prospect of resuming negotiations, which broke down in 2000, when then-Syrian President Hafez Assad rejected an offer of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, with minor border adjustments near Israel’s Sea of Galilee at the foot of the plateau.
Eran Glick, who heads the tourism office in Merom Golan, said he has recently finished construction of 20 new cabins and was preparing to build more.
“Every time [peace] comes up, I am asked the same thing. I’m sorry to disappoint — we’ll keep doing and building, and they can continue to sit and talk.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California