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Shebaa Farms

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Geographic position of the Shebaa Farms (Schebaa-Farmen in German).

Shebaa Farms (Arabic: مزارع شبعا, Template:ArabDIN; Hebrew: חוות שבעא, Havot Sheba'a) is a small area of disputed ownership located at the junction of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. The area, now completly desolate, is located between the slopes of the Golan Heights, the Lebanese village of Shebaa, and the northwestern slopes of Mount Hermon. It is close to the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights (about seven km away), and overlooks Israeli towns below, such as Qiryat Shemona.

The area is about 14 km (9 miles) in length, and averages 2.5 km (2 miles) in width, coming to about 25 square km (10 square miles). Altitudes range from 150 to 1,880 meters (490–6,170 ft). GeoRef: 33|18|57.91|N,35|44|08.10|E(GoogleEarth). Its fertile, well-watered, mountainous farmland formerly produced tobacco, barley, fruits, and vegetables on 14 farms,[1] but is now desolate.

It was captured by Israel from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967, which did not involve Lebanon. Israel considers the Shebaa Farms to be part of the Golan Heights,[2] and extended Israeli law to the region in 1981.[3] The controversy over the Farms first arose in 2000, after the United Nations certified Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon as full and complete. Israel's annexation of the Shebaa Farms has been asserted by Hezbollah as a reason for its continued attacks on Israel after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.

Members of the international diplomatic community have repeatedly requested that Syria and Lebanon take steps to determine the exact boundary between them in the Shebaa Farms region and elsewhere, including officially registering the demarcated border with the United Nations.[4]

Origins (1923-67)

The dispute over the sovereignty of the Shebaa Farms resulted in part from the failure of the French Mandate administrations, and subsequently the Lebanese and Syrian governments, to properly demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria.

In the 1923 Anglo-French Demarcation Agreement, which set the borders between the British and French mandates in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, the area was included in Syria.[5]

Documents from the 1920s and 1930s indicate that some local inhabitants regarded themselves as part of Lebanon, for example paying taxes to the Lebanese government, but that French officials often expressed confusion on the actual location of the border.[6] One French official in 1939 expressed the belief that the uncertainty was sure to cause trouble in the future.

The region continued to be demarcated in the 1930s and 1940s as Syrian territory, under the French mandate. Detailed maps showing the border were produced by the French in 1933, and again in 1945, "Beyrouth" 1:200,000 sheet NI36-XII available in the U.S. Library of Congress and French archives. They clearly showed the region to be in Syria.

Following France's exit from the region, the land was administered by Syria, and represented as such in all historical maps of the time. [7] But a commission responsible for demarcating the border in the decades after the French mandate ended in 1946 did not act decisively to delimit or demarcate this area.

The maps of the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Syria and Israel designated the area as Syrian.

Border disputes arose frequently. Starting in the late 1950s and ending in 1964, Syria and Lebanon formed a joint council to determine a proper border between the two nations. Shebaa Farms was not unique, as several other border villages had similar discrepancies of borders versus land ownership. In 1964 the joint Lebanese-Syrian border committee suggested to their governments that the Shebaa Farms area be deemed the property of Lebanon, and recommended that the international border be reestablished consistent with its suggestion. However, its suggestion was not adopted by Syria or Lebanon, and the countries did not take any actions along the suggested lines. Thus, the maps of the area continued to reflect the Farms as being in Syria. [7] Even maps of both the Syrian and Lebanese armies continued to demarcate the region within Syrian territory.[7]

File:Shebaafarms.png
A Lebanese military map, published in 1966, showing the Shebaa Farms as being on the Syrian side of the border.

A number of local residents regarded themselves as Lebanese, however. The Lebanese government showed little interest in their views. The Syrian government administered the region, and on the eve of the 1967 war, the region was under effective Syrian control.

In 1967 most Shebaa Farms landowners and farmers (Lebanese) lived outside the Syrian-controlled region, across the Lebanon-Syrian border, in the Lebanese village of Shebaa. During the Six Day War, Israel captured the Farms from Syria. After Syria lost the land (to the Israelis) in 1967, the Lebanese landowners were no longer able to farm it.[8][9]

UN Resolution 242 (1967)

In 1967, following the termination of the Six Day War, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242 (1967),[10] later reaffirmed by UN Security Council Resolution 338 (1973),[11] calling for all four of the following:

  1. The "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" (in French, which was a translation of the English, "retrait des forces armées israéliennes des territoires occupés lors du récent conflit"). Note: The UN regards this territory as Syrian territory occupied by Israel (not Lebanese territory, subject to Resolution 242). There is a dispute as to whether the language requires withdrawal from "all" Lebanese territories. The French text uses "des," meaning "from the," the English text -- which is authoratative -- delibately omits the "the," leading to a dispute about the meaning of the resolution. The drafting process was in English; the French was only a translation of the English. The Russian and Spanish readings match the English one. The practice at the UN is that the binding version of any resolution is the one voted upon. In the case of 242, that binding version was in English. (See statement by Arthur Goldberg, US Ambassador to the United Nations at that time, and an author of the resolution: "The notable omissions in regard to withdrawal... are the words 'all,' 'the' and 'the June 5, 1967 lines'... There is lacking a declaration requiring Israel to withdraw from all of the territories occupied by it on, and after, June 5, 1967... On certain aspects, the Resolution is less ambiguous than its withdrawal language. Resolution 242(1967) specifically calls for termination of all claims or states of belligerency ..." (Columbia Journal of International Law, Vol. 12, no. 2, 1973)). The disputed territory was not mentioned by the Lebanese government after the 1967 Six Day War, or the 1973 October War, as an occupation issue.]

All of the involved states, arguably, have failed to satisfy one or more of the four cornerstones of the resolution.

In 1981, the Farms were officially annexed by Israel, as part of the Golan Heights.[12] This unilateral annexation is not recognised by the UN or international community.

The dispute

The Coastal Road Massacre

From 1968, the PLO, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other Palestinian groups established a quasi-state in southern Lebanon, and used it to launch attacks against Israel. On March 11, 1978 members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) infiltrated Israel from Lebanon, and killed 37 Israeli civilians riding in a bus in the Tel Aviv area. In addition, 76 Israelis were injured, and an American nature photographer was killed on an Israeli beach -- See Coastal Road Massacre. This attack was the most deadly in a string of attacks launched from Lebanese territory. It triggered Israel's Operation Litani against PLO bases in southern Lebanon three days later.

Operation Litani and UN Resolution 425 (1978-2000)

Five days after Operation Litani began, UN Security Council Resolution 425 (1978) called upon Israel to: "withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory." The phrase "all territory" was used in Resolution 425, contrasting with the language in Resolution 242 (1967). Resolution 425 asked Israel to withdraw from Lebanon according to the line its forces were positioned at before the May 14 1978 invasion. [citation needed](See: Blue Line)

On May 22 2000, Israel completed its withdrawal from the southern Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 425.[13] The UN certified the completion of Israel's pullout.[14]

Lebanon's claim (2000)

In 2000, in what appears to be the Lebanese government's first claim to the territory, Lebanon disputed Israel's compliance with UN Resolution 425 (1978). Lebanon claimed that the Shebaa Farms area was actually Lebanese, and that the Israelis should therefore withdraw from there as well. Lebanon asserted that the UN certification of the Israeli withdrawal was "invalid," because of Lebanon's claim to the Farms.[15]

Lebanese officials point to land deeds, stamped by the Lebanese government, that were held by a number of area residents area in the 1940s and 1950s.

The new Lebanese claim to this area is one reason now asserted for Hezbollah's continuing conflict with Israel, and cross-border attacks.[16] However, Hezbollah's spokesperson Hassan Ezzedin had this to say about the Farms: "If they go from Sheba'a, we will not stop fighting them. Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine...[Jews] can go back to Germany or wherever they came from.”[17]

Lebanese Media Reaction to Lebanon's claim

A Lebanese newspaper, however, described the land deed of one Shebaa resident as "handwritten and signed on a yellowing piece of paper in pencil and ink." Moreover, it is quite common for Lebanese to own land in Syria, and vice versa.[18]

In fact, on February 13, 2006, a Beirut Times article reported that Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon and Lebanese parliament member, displayed the map as a "fake map," with the boundary shifted.[19]

All period maps save one, an apparent forgery, show the land as being on the Syrian side of the border. In contrast to this forged 1966 map, submitted to the UN in 2000, all published maps showed the area to be within Syria. Lebanese army maps published in 1961 and 1966 clearly show the Shebaa Farms area (including Zebdine, Fashkoul, Mougr Shebaa, and Ramta) as being on the Syrian side of the border. All known Syrian maps, and all known Lebanese Ministry of Tourism maps, also show the Lebanese-Syrian border running west of the Shebaa Farms, which would place Shebaa Farms to the east of the border and therefore within Syria.[20]

Syrian Position

Syria has supported Lebanon's claim that the Shebaa Farms are part of Lebanon and not Syrian territory at the United Nations and in offical goverment press releases.

On May 16, 2000, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouq al-Shara, indicated to Annan in a telephone conversation that the Syrian Arab Republic supported Lebanon's claim.[21] This was made public in the UN Press Release SC/6878 of 18 June 2000 which stated 'Concerning the Shab'a farmlands, both Lebanon and Syria state that this land belongs to Lebanon.'[14]

Support for the Lebonese claim was reiterated in January 21, 2006, by the President of Syria in a speech before the convention of the Arab Lawyers Union in Damascus and translated into English by SANA, the official state news agency of Syria. President Bashar al-Assad states two things were required for demarcation of the border – registration with the United Nations followed by engineering works to define border points definitely and finally. As neither Syria nor Lebanon have access to the area, resolution is waiting on Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territory.[22]

According to a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Syria does not recognize Lebanon because it does not have diplomatic relations with Lebanon, and in un-specified Syrian textbooks Lebanon appears as part of "Greater Syria."[23][24]

UN Reaction to Lebanon's claim

The United Nations agreed with Israel's view that the area is not covered by United Nations UN Security Council Resolution 425, which governed the withdrawal from Lebanon, inasmuch as the Farms are not Lebanese territory, and the UN certified Israel's pullout.[14] At the same time the UN noted that its decision was "without prejudice to future border agreements between the Member States concerned," referring to Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.

The United Nations stated: "On 15 May 2000, the United Nations received a map, dated 1966, from the Government of Lebanon which reflected the Government's position that these farmlands were located in Lebanon. However, the United Nations is in possession of 10 other maps issued after 1966 by various Lebanese government institutions, including the Ministry of Defense and the army, all of which place the farmlands inside the Syrian Arab Republic. The United Nations has also examined six maps issued by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, including three maps since 1966, which place the farmlands inside the Syrian Arab Republic."[25]

In a June 18, 2000 statement, the Security Council noted that Israel and Lebanon had confirmed to the Secretary General, that identification of the withdrawal line was solely the responsibility of the United Nations and that both sides would respect the line as identified. Moreover, the Security Council took note, "with serious concern," of reports of violations - by Hezbollah[26] - that had occurred since June 16, 2000, and called upon the parties to respect the line drawn by the United Nations.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in remarks to the press with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Foreign Minister of Spain Josep Pique, Foreign Minister of Russia Igor Ivanov, and European Union Senior Official Javier Solana in Madrid, Spain, on April 10, 2002, said: "With reference to the disturbances along the Blue Line emanating from Lebanese territory, I call on the Government of Lebanon and all relevant parties to condemn and prevent such violations. The Security Council itself confirmed in June 2000 that Israel had withdrawn from southern Lebanon in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions 425 and 426. Attacks at any point along the Blue Line, including in the Shebaa Farms area in the occupied Golan Heights, are violations of Security Council resolutions. Respect for decisions of the Security Council is the most basic requirement of international legitimacy."

More recently, the January 20, 2005 UN Secretary-General's report on Lebanon stated rather emphatically: "The continually asserted position of the Government of Lebanon that the Blue Line is not valid in the Shab'a farms area is not compatible with Security Council resolutions. The Council has recognized the Blue Line as valid for purposes of confirming Israel’s withdrawal pursuant to resolution 425 (1978). The Government of Lebanon should heed the Council’s repeated calls for the parties to respect the Blue Line in its entirety."[27] Timur Goksel, a spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told the BBC that: "on all maps the UN has been able to find, the farms are seen on the Syrian side [of the border]."[28]

Other World Reaction to Lebanon's claim

The Arab League backs the Lebanese claim, with the communique issued at Arab League's 13th session asking for complete Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied Palestinian lands ... and from Lebanese lands still under occupation, to internationally recognised borders, including the Shebaa Farms. [29]

On May 19, 2005, an off-the-record senior diplomat at a Brookings Institution luncheon reported that: "in drawing the 'Blue Line' in 2000, the United Nations looked at more than ninety different maps of the region. Only one of them — which was deemed a forgery — showed the Shebaa Farms as Lebanese."[30]

Along similar lines, John Bolton, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, said on April 26, 2006: "I think the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence is that Shebaa Farms is Syrian territory."[31]

Nancy Soderberg, the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, made a similar observation on July 21, 2006. She wrote that: "When it was clear the Israelis were going to withdraw fully from Lebanon, Syrian and Lebanese officials fabricated the fiction that this small, sparsely populated area was part of Lebanon. They even produced a crudely fabricated map to back up the dubious claim. I and United Nations officials went into the map room in the United Nations and looked at all the maps of the region in the files for decades. All showed the Shebaa Farms clearly in Syria."[32]

In support for a ceasefire regarding the Lebanese/Israeli conflict that escalated sharply in the summer of 2006, former United States president Jimmy Carter wrote in the Washington Post on August 1: "Israel should withdraw from all Lebanese territory, including Shebaa Farms."[33]

Miscellaneous

Shebaa Farms is also referred to as Shaba, Sheba, Shiba, Shabba, Shebba, Shibba, Shabaa, Shibaa, Chebaa, Sheeba, Shabah, Shabbah, Shab'a, Chab'a, Sheb'a, Shib'a, Sheba'a, and Shib’a Farms.

The Lebanese refer to the ridge at the northern end of the Shebaa Farms area as the Kafr Shuba Hills. The Israelis refer to the area as Har Dov (Bear Mountain, in Hebrew), and the Syrians call it Jabel Rous (Bear Mountain, in Arabic). The area has been known as Shebaa farms only in the last 6 years, named after the ridge which extends into Lebanon, and is east of the Lebanese village of Kafr Shuba.

References

  1. ^ (Describing a trip by UN special Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, in 2000) Roed-Larsen was told that, in addition to the areas occupied in 1978, Israeli forces seized a piece of Lebanese territory during the 1967 Six Day War called the Shebaa Farms, a 25 square kilometer area consisting of 14 farms located south of Shebaa, a Lebanese village on the western slopes of Mount Hermon... Since Lebanon was not a participant in the Six Day War, UN representatives were understandably skeptical, pointing out that the 1923 Anglo-French demarcation and the 1949 Armistice line clearly designated the area as Syrian territory. Gary C. Gambill. "Syria and the Shebaa Farms Dispute", in Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, volume 3, number 5 (May 2001) [1] The MEIB article provides further citations, including Security Council minutes and Beirut Daily Star articles.
  2. ^ "The Legal Status of the Shabaa Farms". Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 8-Apr-2002. Retrieved 2006-08-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  3. ^ http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Golan+Heights+Law.htm
  4. ^ "UN envoy calls on Lebanon and Syria to firm up borders". Egypt Information Channel. 2006-03-24. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
  5. ^ "Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 425 (1978) and 426 (1978)". United Nations Security Council. 22 May 2000. Retrieved 2006-08-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  6. ^ Kaufman, Asher (2004). "Understanding the Sheeba Farms dispute". Palestine-Israel Journal. 11 (1). Retrieved 2006-07-22.
  7. ^ a b c Kaufman, Asher (Autumn 2002). "Who owns the Shebaa Farms? Chronicle of a territorial dispute". Middle East Journal. 56 (4). Middle East Institute: 576–596.
  8. ^ Model United Nations of the University of Chicago. "Shebaa Farms" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-07-23. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. ^ Cilina Nasser (25 April 2005). "The key to Shebaa". Al-jazeera. Retrieved 2006-07-23.
  10. ^ http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open&DS=S/RES/242%20(1967)&Lang=E&Area=RESOLUTION
  11. ^ http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open&DS=S/RES/343%20(1973)&Lang=E&Area=RESOLUTION
  12. ^ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/myths2006.pdf
  13. ^ http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/d744b47860e5c97e85256c40005d01d6/e25dae8e3ce54fb5852560e50079c708!OpenDocument
  14. ^ a b c SECURITY COUNCIL ENDORSES SECRETARY-GENERAL’S CONCLUSION ON ISRAELI WITHDRAWAL FROM LEBANON AS OF 16 JUNE
  15. ^ United Nations Secretary-General (16 June 2000). "Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 425 (1978) and 426 (1978)". S/2000/590. United Nations. Retrieved 2006-07-23. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  16. ^ "Shebaa farmers view Hezbollah as their savior". aljazeera.com. 27 May 2006. Retrieved 2006-07-23.
  17. ^ Jeffrey Goldberg (14 October 2002). "The New Yorker, (October 14, 2002)". The New Yorker. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  18. ^ http://www.meib.org/articles/0105_l1.htm
  19. ^ http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=22163
  20. ^ See map in body of article
  21. ^ http://domino.un.org/unispal.NSF/5ba47a5c6cef541b802563e000493b8c/97bad2289146f58a852568e9006d99bd!OpenDocument
  22. ^ http://www.cggl.org/scripts/document.asp?id=46253
  23. ^ http://www.middleeastinfo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=10404
  24. ^ "Chapter V: The portrayal of Israel and Israelis". Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace. Retrieved 2006-07-26. Google Cache
  25. ^ Cite error: The named reference UNreport was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  26. ^ http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/background.html -- not found in the UN release SC/6878 - please cite or remove
  27. ^ http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sc8299.doc.htm
  28. ^ BBC News (London), 25 May 2000.
  29. ^ http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/209.html%7CTitle= Final communique issued of the Arab League's 13 session, Amman 1 April 2001
  30. ^ http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/events/20050519.htm
  31. ^ http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/65327.htm
  32. ^ http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/072106/opl_3965102.shtml
  33. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/31/AR2006073100923.html
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