As Israel asserts Golan control, the move is a civil war’s one point of agreement

With Syria’s civil war raging on in its sixth year, neighboring Israel has largely managed to keep a comfortable distance from the bloody conflict, in no small part thanks to the Jewish state’s strong presence in the strategic Golan Heights—a territory that has belonged to Israel for nearly 50 years, but is considered disputed territory by the international community. After acquiring and defending the Golan in wartime, Israel now faces a diplomatic battle over its control there.

Recently, a circulated draft of talking points in United Nations-sponsored Syrian civil war peace negotiations featured a call on Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria. This revelation drew a quick response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who phoned U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to inform him that Israel supports the Syrian peace talks only “on the condition that it does not come at the cost of Israeli security,” the Washington Post reported.

On April 17, the Israeli government’s ministerial cabinet chose to hold its weekly meeting in the Golan Heights in order to affirm the Jewish state’s sovereignty in the area.

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Middle East expert Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, said the peace talks’ concept of Israeli control over the Golan Heights being a “central tenet” in the Syrian civil war is “preposterous.” At the same time, he said, it “seems obvious that this is something that all sides in Syria could agree on as a starting point.”

“If anything, Israel’s control over the Golan Heights has removed one territory that can be taken over by Nusra Front or the Islamic State,” Schanzer told JNS.org, referencing two terror groups that are involved in the Syrian conflict.

The issue of Israel, Schanzer told JNS.org, “continues to be something that even warring factions can agree on.”

“The perpetual hatred of Israel and blaming Israel for the region’s problems is the lowest common denominator,” he said.

Schanzer said the Obama administration is “not reflecting reality” on the Golan Heights issue, comparing the administration’s position to its stance on pushing for a two-state solution despite the fact that the Palestinians are internally divided between Hamas rule in Gaza and Palestinian Authority control in the West Bank.

“It is very difficult to understand the place the Golan Heights has in any of this (the U.S. helping to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict). It doesn’t have a role to play with the Palestinians. It doesn’t have a role to play with the [Bashar] Assad regime [in Syria], because there is no peace process that is going to take part with Assad in the near future,” Schanzer said, adding that the Obama administration is framing the Golan Heights “as a matter of principle, not as a situation that is changing over time.”

“There is zero chance that Israel cedes this territory,” FDD’s Schanzer said. “The Israelis understand the volatility in Syria and they understand the environment….The Syrian civil war, for them (the Israelis), has reinforced the idea that they should keep the Golan. It is an opportunity to assert a legitimate claim on this territory. The idea of handing this territory over to any of the actors in the Syrian conflict is really hard to imagine.”

“Syria as a country doesn’t really exist,” Schanzer told JNS.org. “You have a redrawing of the map that is undeniable at this point. That is something the Israelis are pointing to as well, to bolster their claims in the Golan.”

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