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Israeli Official: Buy Golan Heights
AP via Arab World News ^ | 19 february 2002 | AP

Posted on 02/19/2002 1:08:10 PM PST by knighthawk

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's justice minister on Tuesday said Israel should buy the disputed Golan Heights from Syria as a way of keeping hold of the strategic plateau.

Numerous attempts to negotiate Syrian-Israeli peace have collapsed over the question of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War.

A peace agreement proposed in 2000 fell apart over Syria's rejection of an Israeli demand to keep the Sea of Galilee's eastern shore, which lies at the foot of the heights.

``We have to find an original way to keep the Golan Heights in Israeli hands in the future,'' Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit said during the opening of a courthouse in Katzrin, the largest Israeli settlement on the plateau.

``One of the proposals is to buy the Golan from Syria,'' he said. ``I will be the first to join this effort, and I am ready to have my salary cut to help buy the Golan.''

Sheetrit did not suggest a monetary figure.

After its 1967 capture, Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 and populated it with settlers. In all, about 18,000 Israelis live there along with some 17,000 Arabs, who follow the Druse religion, an offshoot of Islam.

The building of Israeli settlements there has angered Syria.

On Thursday, hundreds of Arab residents on either side of the Israeli-Syrian cease-fire line held a demonstration to protest Israel's occupation of the plateau, chanting together: ``With our blood and soul, we sacrifice ourselves for the Golan.''


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events; Syria; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: golan; golanheights; hezbollah; iran; israel; lebanon; syria; waronterror

1 posted on 02/19/2002 1:08:10 PM PST by knighthawk (knighthawk@wish.nl)
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To: golitely; rebdov; Nix 2
Ping
2 posted on 02/19/2002 1:08:23 PM PST by knighthawk
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To: knighthawk
``With our blood and soul, we sacrifice ourselves for the Golan.''

Somehow I don't think they're going to give it up.

3 posted on 02/19/2002 2:17:46 PM PST by AussieLeftie
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To: knighthawk
After its 1967 capture, Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 and populated it with settlers. In all, about 18,000 Israelis live there along with some 17,000 Arabs, who follow the Druse religion, an offshoot of Islam.

If Israel were to give up the Golan, would those 18,000 Israelis be allowed to stay, as the Druse have?

4 posted on 02/19/2002 2:27:29 PM PST by SJackson
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To: knighthawk
OK...what's wrong with these two thoughts, when taken together?...

...Israel should buy the disputed Golan Heights from Syria...
...which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War."

To the victor go the spoils. Is somebody missing the obvious here?

5 posted on 02/19/2002 2:34:55 PM PST by woollyone
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To: All
Hmmm.... wonder where they'll get the money...... I suppose if they let us store nuke waste or something there we'd be willing to help them out.....
6 posted on 02/19/2002 2:35:10 PM PST by NevadaY
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To: knighthawk
Israel's justice minister on Tuesday said Israel should buy the disputed Golan Heights from Syria as a way of keeping hold of the strategic plateau.

The guy is an idiot.

He is implicitly saying that the Golan is Syria's to sell, or not sell. It is not. It is part of Israel

ML/NJ

7 posted on 02/19/2002 3:02:50 PM PST by ml/nj
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To: knighthawk
Only if Israel can get it at "wholesale" prices...never pay retail for a piece of strategic land.
8 posted on 02/19/2002 3:47:22 PM PST by hangin' chad
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: knighthawk
Israel bought the Golan Heights with Jewish blood. Before 1967 the Muslim barbarians were constantly lobbing shells on Jewish communities from the heights and it was almost impossible to defend against their attacks. Miraculously the Jews took the Golan in '67 and paid for them in blood. The Jews owe the Arabs nothing.
10 posted on 02/19/2002 3:51:25 PM PST by rebdov
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To: knighthawk
Golan an integral part of Israel. It was conquered in 1967 in quite a costly and difficult struggle. Israel holds this area, biblically known as Bashan, partly upon its biblical status as part of the Israel patrimony:

--and partly by the same right that the United States holds many of its own territories-- the right of conquest.

11 posted on 02/19/2002 4:09:11 PM PST by crystalk
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To: knighthawk
They should buy everything. West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon. Maybe Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Buy it all.
12 posted on 02/19/2002 4:13:43 PM PST by RightWhale
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

At this point "buy" it from who could become an issue. Having already annexed the Golan, suggesting a purchase merely delegitimizes the annexation.

13 posted on 05/11/2015 4:21:45 AM PDT by SJackson (I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes)
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To: knighthawk

Is not the question moot?

Since the Syria of the last war no longer really exists and is failing, why bother?

The status quo is that the territory is de facto Israeli at present


14 posted on 05/11/2015 4:24:31 AM PDT by bert ((K.E.; N.P.; GOPc.;+12, 73, ..... No peace? then no peace!)
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To: rebdov
The Jews owe the Arabs nothing.

I disagree, Israel owes the Arab world a good swift kick in the 'nads for all of the unprovoked attacks they have had to fend off over the last 50 years.

15 posted on 05/11/2015 4:47:23 AM PDT by verga (I might as well be playing chess with pigeons,.)
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To: knighthawk
Israel might be able to buy the Golan Heights from Assad, paid for with ammo and supplies for his beleaguered army.

But if Syria falls to ISIS, the new ISIS government would repudiate the sale, and Israel would be back where they started.

16 posted on 05/11/2015 4:51:33 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (You don't notice it's a police state until the police come for you.)
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To: SJackson
If Israel were to give up the Golan, would those 18,000 Israelis be allowed to stay, as the Druse have?

What have you been smoking? OF COURSE NOT! Jews have been forcibly expelled from virtually all of the Muslim countries, just for being Jewish.

If anyone thinks the Arabs will be satisfied with money for Golan, they're not thinking right either. I'm afraid until Israel wins another big war--once again decisively defeating incompetent Arab armies...there will continue to be belly-aching and victimhood. It's all the Arab Muslims know how to do well.

17 posted on 05/12/2015 10:29:44 AM PDT by AnalogReigns (Real life is ANALOG...)
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To: knighthawk

There shouldn’t be any dispute over land ownership. God granted Title and Deed to Israel 4,000 years ago and recorded it in the best Registrar of Deeds known to man:

Genesis 15:18

In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

That same Title was transferred through Isaac by promise. Not Ishmael!


18 posted on 03/21/2019 3:05:43 PM PDT by patriot torch
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