Israel-Syria: the Golan’s “Peace Park”

In 2007, in the Jordan Basin, a once stalled track appeared to be moving slowly; the Israel-Syrian peace track. There were increasing media reports that Israeli and Syrian representatives reached secret “understandings”. The text of the proposed agreement had already been “leaked” to the press in the summer, and appeared in Ha’aretz, in January 16th, 2007. Whatever the truth behind all those reports, the agreement is not essentially exceptional; its text had been ready since the 1970’s, after the 1967 war.

Genesis

Israel was born in 1948, but 1967 defined it. Before 1967, Israel was the lowermost riparian on the Jordan River, essentially dependent on its neighbours for access to the water, and its experts held to the concept of “historic use” and advocated the principle of “community of property”. After the Six-Day war of 1967, Israel became in effect an upstream riparian of the Jordan Basin. Whether water was the main reason for this war or not, the skirmishes that led to the conflict had first started around the diversion projects of the 1950’s and 1960’s. By the end of the war, Israel had gained control over the entire Jordan Basin and part of the Yarmuk, with the exception of the Hasbani in Lebanon, and then started advocating the “Harmon Doctrine” of absolute territorial sovereignty.

However, Israel’s water security remains weak, because no formal agreement guarantees its right to the waters it is currently exploiting; all this “hydrostrategic territory” remains an important focus of Israeli policy. This has been the case since the country’s inception, with territorial claims that extended beyond the borders of what could be considered “biblical” Palestine, when Chaim Weizmann claimed that since Lebanon “is a well-watered region […] and the Litani River is valueless to the territory north of the proposed frontiers”, thus implying that its waters “can be used beneficially in the country much further south”.

This feeling of insecurity explains Israel’s attitude in the negotiations with its Arab neighbors, especially the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese who find themselves upstream.

In the absence of cooperation to solve “the water problem”, Israeli strategic thinkers consider that “there can be no security arrangements”, in which case “Israel must do all it can to safeguard its existing water assets in the territories”.

The non-paper has a “peace park” as its centerpiece. It has Four notable elements.

First, the agreement would cede control of the Golan’s water to Israel, since Syria would be agreeing, in principle, to an effective partition of the Golan along the lines defined by the Schwarz-Zohar report. Not only does the agreement clearly state that “Israel will control the use and disposition of the water in the Upper Jordan River and Lake Tiberius”, but it also forbids Syria from carrying out any activities that “interrupt or obstruct natural flow of water in either quality or quantity”. With this in mind, provisions that “recognize and guarantee” any “Syrian use of the waters” “residential and fishing purposes” are effectively meaningless.

The second remarkable element is the presence of “a park” for “joint use by Israelis and Syrians”, which “will cover a significant portion of the Golan Heights”, and allow Israel to “retain control over the use of the waters”, and to remain “free to access the park”, independent of “Syrian approval”. This begs the question; why the provisions covering the management of a mere “nature preserve” comprise more than 30% of the text of a peace settlement? The answer lays in the findings of and earlier Israeli report, which outlines Israel’s bottom line.

Indeed, because the principle of “land for peace” guides the Madrid/Olso process, Israeli planners had to determine the amount of land that the country can afford to return without compromising security and water supply. Such hydrostrategic concerns are “a more decisive reason for territorial claims than traditional military security issues”.

The extent of such assets was clearly defined in 1991, in a study by Joshua Schwarz and Aaron Zohar, two researchers at the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Research Studies (JCSS) at the University of Tel Aviv, who worked in collaboration with Tahal. In what became know known as the “Schwarz-Zohar” or the “Tahal-Jaffee” report, they identified key hydrostrategic regions in the Upper Jordan Basin and in the West Bank, and defined Israel’s “withdrawal lines[9]”. The report later formed the basis of a 2002 settlement proposal suggested by the International Crisis Group on July 16th, 2002, which were centered on a “Jordan Valley Preserve”. The proposed “peace park” proposed today follows the exact outline of the hydrostrategic regions of the Golan.

This brings us to the third notable element; the outline that the Syrians and Israelis agreed on includes territory claimed by Lebanon, in both Ghajar and Shebaa. According to the 1923 demarcation between Lebanon and Palestine, a third of the current territory of Ghajar is Lebanese, but it finds itself included in the “Peace Park.”

In the Shebaa farms…

…the “Peace Park” would cover the southern portion of the area claimed by Lebanon (between 10% and 20% of the region’s area). An additional breach of Lebanese sovereignty is the proposed “establishment of an early warning system includes a ground station on Jabal as-Sheikh”, on Lebanon’s territory. .

A fourth intriguing element is that the agreement includes language that enjoins “the Parties” to collaborate on reaching solutions to “regional problems related to the Palestinians, Lebanese, and Iran[12]”. The language is interesting here; while the agreement mentions a country (Iran), it does not mention the nations of Palestine or Lebanon. Like the “Palestinians”, whose national sovereignty is not yet recognised by Israel, we appear in the agreement as “Lebanese”.

The net effect of all this “agreement” is clear; as reportedly secured for Syria by Mr. Suleiman, is not only to cede Syrian claims over its own water resources, but also to compromise Lebanese sovereignty. This agreement is a bad omen for Lebanon, but it also negatively affects Syria’s development. Because of the peculiar Syrian geography, the water resources of the Golan are vital for the development of the southern region and the Golan.