By Stan Goodenough
May 25, 2008
The former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces appeared to be suffering a form of battle fatigue at the weekend when he declared that Israel has no real need of the Golan Heights.
Dan Halutz, who resigned in January 2007 in what the Israeli media described as "the wake of the failings" of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, made headlines Saturday after telling a Beer Sheba gathering he gets "stomach pains from the thought of returning the Golan, but in theory, Israel could get by without the Golan."
The statement followed a shock announcement by the governments of Israel and Syria on Wednesday that the two long-time enemies were preparing to discuss peace through an intermediary, starting in two weeks' time.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem asserted after the announcement that Israel had agreed to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace.
The Israeli government quickly issued a strong denial, which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's diminishing credibility rendered unconvincing.
Halutz's weighing in on the Golan issue, and his astonishing assertion that Israel could do without the plateau that towers above the Upper Galilee, is expected to help nudge Olmert and his ministers into actually preparing the Israeli public to pay that enormously risky price for promises of Damascene peace.
Every Israeli school child knows that Israel's presence on the Golan Heights, which was paid for with a high cost in Israeli blood, is the main contributing factor to the reality that the country's border with Syria is its quietest and most secure.
With Damascus in easy range of the formidable Merkava tanks the IDF has stationed on the Golan, and with Israeli listening posts dotting that border from their highest point on Mount Hermon, the Syrians have been unable to act aggressively towards the Jewish state.
The Golan also adds vital strategic depth to Israel, a small and narrow country which, without those heights and the heartland of Samaria and Judea, has been declared indefensible by numerous high-ranking Israeli and United States military officials.
Halutz also reportedly insisted that the Second Lebanon War - in which the Hizb'allah gave the IDF a bloody nose and sent more than a million Israelis fleeing as its rockets slammed into the north of the Jewish state - had not negatively affected Israel's deterrence.
Hizb'allah, which maintains [more than reasonably IMO – Ed] that it won that war against Israel, has used its success against the mighty Jewish-run military machine to draw great numbers of new recruits into its ranks. And the terror group has brazenly exploited the ceasefire Israel was pressured into signing as a cover for re-arming - today boasting many thousands more missiles in its arsenal than it had before that war.
According to Israel National News, Halutz's statements earned him some sharp slaps from Israeli right thinking politicians and, unsurprisingly, some songs of praise from the leftist camp - which formerly had derided him as a right winger, even suing him for anti-leftwing statements.
"In theory and in practice, Israel can get by without Dan Halutz," retorted National Union Party Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad, while his fellow party member MK Effie Eitam slammed the former Chief of Staff and Air Force commander.
Halutz had not learned from his failures during the Second Lebanon War, said Eitam. He continued to underestimate the critical importance of a controlling presence on the ground.
Meretz MKs welcomed Halutz’s statements, saying he had proven the importance of reaching a peace deal with Syria and showed that "peace with Syria is already a part of the consensus."
Arch-leftist Yossi Beilin said Halutz had proven that "the strategic contribution of a deal with Syria... is far more important than retaining the Golan Heights."