Dore Gold on Sheba Farms

The Shebaa Farms

When Israel withdrew its forces unilaterally from Lebanon on March 20, 2000, Secretary-General Kofi Annan certified that by withdrawing to the “blue line,” Israel had indeed left all Lebanese territory. His determination was enshrined by UN Security Council Resolution 1310.

Nonetheless, Hizballah argued that Israel was still retaining Lebanese territory, because it continued to hold the Shebaa Farms, which were in the Golan Heights. Lebanese officials backed Hizballah’s claim. Historically, the Shebaa Farms were captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War along with the rest of the Golan Heights; their future disposition, it has been assumed, is part of the Israeli-Syrian territorial dispute. Lebanon claimed that in 1951, Syria transferred the Shebaa Farms to Lebanon. However, no such agreement was ever deposited at the UN and Lebanese Army maps from 1961 and 1966 shows the Shebaa Farms to be inside Syria.2



Thus, while Hizballah’s claim, in the name of the Lebanese state, to the Shebaa Farms has no basis in either UN resolutions or in past diplomatic documentation, the U.S.-French draft resolution envisions a long-term security plan that includes: “delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including in the Shebaa Farms area.” The status of the Shebaa Farms was certain, until the draft resolution: it was Syrian territory that Israel captured in a war of self-defense and hence was disputed territory in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 242.

This is not just a legal issue, for the draft resolution clearly traces the current crisis in Lebanon to Hizballah’s attack on Israel on July 12, 2006, describing the abduction of Israeli solders as one of the “causes” of the conflict. Yet, by granting that the Shebaa Farms issue is a genuine dispute, the draft resolution rewards Hizballah by recognizing one of its main claims over the last six years. Moreover, there is no internationally agreed understanding of how much territory is involved. One estimate of the size of the Shebaa Farms is that it covers as much as 25 square kilometers.3 The point is that this international discussion over the Shebaa Farms is being raised with regard to a geographically undefined quantity of territory, which could open up a bottomless pit of demands against the State of Israel.