Oddly, such laid-back Golan settlers could be more of a problem for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin than the zealots of the West Bank. Some West Bank settlers call Rabin a traitor–and vow to take up arms–because he plans to cede land they believe God promised to them. But the 13,000 Jews on the Golan, where the local Syrian Druze live without much fuss in four villages, are far more popular in Israel. Most of them voted for Rabin’s Labor Party in the last election. And they live on land that is important to Israel’s security. The Golan Heights looms so large in the public imagination that Rabin last week promised a plebiscite before any agreement to relinquish large parts of it. “The issue here,” he said, “is war or peace.”
Golan settlers are throwing themselves into the new electoral battle. Already, bumper stickers and makeshift banners in Israel declare: THE NATION IS WITH THE GOLAN. Activists hope to attract a million Israeli tourists to the Golan to give them a glimpse of what’s at stake. And some powerful members of Rabin’s party are already on board. Labor legislator Avigdor Kahalani, who led a tank battalion on the Golan in the 1973 war, heads a Knesset lobby opposing territorial concessions to Syria. “We are now 65 kilometers from their capital,” says the veteran of three wars. “This is the only way to protect ourselves.”
Meanwhile, some Golan businesses already have bet against a land-for-peace swap. Three months ago the Golan Heights Winery began a $5 million expansion–nearly $2 million of it financed by the government. “You can’t run a successful business and at the same time think about closing it down,” says Schoenfeld. A ski resort on Mount Hermon, the Golan’s highest peak, spent $3 million last year adding chairlifts. “If people waited for political decisions to act,” says Yitzhak Tzuela, the assistant general manager at Mount Hermon, “nobody would have built anything in Israel at all.”
The odds may still favor such doubters. Despite happy noises from Washington about progress, Israeli politicians don’t forecast quick movement in talks that start again there this week. Assad’s public pronouncement after the Clinton summit that he was ready for normal relations fell short of what Israel wanted: an unequivocal definition of peace. Israelis want to hear such phrases as “exchange of ambassadors,” “open borders” and “normal trade.” But Assad won’t give, at least until he gets what he wants: a clear Israeli commitment to return all land occupied in 1967.
The expanding Golan businesses just across Syria’s border play on Assad’s worst fear. In Assad’s view, Rabin now wants to replace a “Greater Israel” based on conquest with a regional zone of economic hegemony. “He lies in bed at night worrying about it,” says Assad’s biographer, Patrick Seale. If Assad’s nightmares prevent him from cutting a deal with Rabin, Golan settlers may raise a few glasses to his future and theirs, too.
