Shebaa Farms

Map of the Shebaa Farms.

Shebaa Farms (, ; , Havot Sheba'a) is a small area of disputed ownership located at the junction of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. The area, now desolate, is located between the Lebanese village of Shebaa on the northwestern slopes of Mount Hermon, the Druze village of Majdal Shams on the slopes of the Golan Heights (about 7 kilometers (4 miles) away), and Israeli towns that it overlooks below, such as Qiryat Shemona.
The area is about 14 km (9 miles) in length, and averages 2.5 km (2 miles) in width, coming to about 25 square km (10 square miles). Altitudes range from 150 to 1,880 meters (490–6,170 feet).GeoRef: [1] 33|18|57.91|N,35|44|08.10|E(GoogleEarth) Its fertile, well-watered, mountainous soil formerly produced tobacco, barley, fruits, and vegetables on 14 farms,(Describing a trip by UN special Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, in 2000) Roed-Larsen was told that, in addition to the areas occupied in 1978, Israeli forces seized a piece of Lebanese territory during the 1967 Six Day War called the Shebaa Farms, a 25 square kilometer area consisting of 14 farms located south of Shebaa, a Lebanese village on the western slopes of Mount Hermon. Since Lebanon was not a participant in the Six Day War, UN representatives were understandably skeptical, pointing out that the 1923 Anglo-French demarcation and the 1949 Armistice line clearly designated the area as Syrian territory. Gary C. Gambill. "Syria and the Shebaa Farms Dispute", in Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, volume 3, number 5 (May 2001) [2] The MEIB article provides further citations, including Security Council minutes and Beirut Daily Star articles. but is now desolate.

It was captured by Israel from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967, which did not involve Lebanon. Israel considers the Shebaa Farms to be part of the Golan Heights, and extended Israeli law to the region in 1981http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Golan+Heights+Law.htm, in an action declared as 'null and void and without international legal effect' in UN SCR 497. According to UN maps ([3] it is part of Syria. The controversy over the Farms first arose in 2000, as the United Nations certified Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon was complete. Israel's annexation of the Shebaa Farms has been contested by Hezbollah (since May 2000) as a reason for its continued attacks on Israel after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon.

Members of the international diplomatic community have repeatedly requested that Syria and Lebanon take steps to determine the exact boundary between them in the Shebaa Farms region and elsewhere, including officially registering the demarcated border with the United Nations. Syrian authorities have verbally confirmed that the territory is Lebanon's but have said they cannot go further because they do not possess the land.

Origins (1923â€"67)

The dispute over the sovereignty of the Shebaa Farms resulted in part from the failure of the French Mandate administrations, and subsequently the Lebanese and Syrian governments, to properly demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria.

In the 1923 Anglo-French Demarcation Agreement, which set the borders between the British and French mandates in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, the area was included in Syria.

Documents from the 1920s and 1930s indicate that some local inhabitants regarded themselves as part of Lebanon, for example paying taxes to the Lebanese government, but that French officials often expressed confusion on the actual location of the border. One French official in 1939 expressed the belief that the uncertainty was sure to cause trouble in the future.

The region continued to be demarcated in the 1930s and 1940s as Syrian territory, under the French mandate. Detailed maps showing the border were produced by the French in 1933, and again in 1945, "Beyrouth" 1:200,000 sheet NI36-XII available in the U.S. Library of Congress and French archives. They clearly showed the region to be in Syria.

Following France's exit from the region, the land was administered by Syria, and represented as such in all historical maps of the time. But a commission responsible for demarcating the border in the decades after the French mandate ended in 1946 did not act decisively to delimit or demarcate this area.

The maps of the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Syria and Israel designated the area as Syrian.

Border disputes arose frequently. Starting in the late 1950s and ending in 1964, Syria and Lebanon formed a joint council to determine a proper border between the two nations. Shebaa Farms was not unique, as several other border villages had similar discrepancies of borders versus land ownership. In 1964 the joint Lebanese-Syrian border committee suggested to their governments that the Shebaa Farms area be deemed the property of Lebanon, and recommended that the international border be reestablished consistent with its suggestion. However, its suggestion was not adopted by Syria or Lebanon, and the countries did not take any actions along the suggested lines. Thus, the maps of the area continued to reflect the Farms as being in Syria. Even maps of both the Syrian and Lebanese armies continued to demarcate the region within Syrian territory.

A Lebanese military map, published in 1966, showing the Shebaa Farms as being on the Syrian side of the border.

A number of local residents regarded themselves as Lebanese, however. The Lebanese government showed little interest in their views. The Syrian government administered the region, and on the eve of the 1967 war, the region was under effective Syrian control.

In 1967 most Shebaa Farms landowners and farmers (Lebanese) lived outside the Syrian-controlled region, across the Lebanon-Syrian border, in the Lebanese village of Shebaa. During the Six Day War, Israel captured the Farms from Syria. After Syria lost the land (to the Israelis) in 1967, the Lebanese landowners were no longer able to farm it.

UN Resolution 242 (1967)

In 1967, following the termination of the Six Day War, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242 (1967),http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open&DS=S/RES/242%20(1967)&Lang=E&Area=RESOLUTION later reaffirmed by UN Security Council Resolution 338 (1973),http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?Open&DS=S/RES/343%20(1973)&Lang=E&Area=RESOLUTION calling for all four of the following: #The "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" (in French, which was a translation of the English, "retrait des forces armÃ©es israÃ©liennes des territoires occupÃ©s lors du rÃ©cent conflit"). Note: The UN regards this territory as Syrian territory occupied by Israel (not Lebanese territory, subject to Resolution 242). There is a dispute as to whether the language requires withdrawal from "all" Lebanese territories. The French text uses "des," meaning "from the." The English text delibately omits the "the," leading to a dispute about the meaning of the sentence. The drafting process was in English; the French was only a translation of the English. The Russian and Spanish readings match the English one. It is not true. There are no articles in Russian language. So expression 'Ð¾ÐºÐºÑƒÐ¿Ð¸Ñ€Ð¾Ð²Ð°Ð½Ð½Ñ‹Ðµ Ñ‚ÐµÑ€Ñ€Ð¸Ñ‚Ð¾Ñ€Ð¸Ð¸' means 'all occupied territories' because an expression 'occupied in the recent conflict' in this context plays role of 'the' in Russian language. The practice at the UN is that the binding version of any resolution is the one voted upon. In the case of 242, that binding version was in English. (See statement by Arthur Goldberg, US Ambassador to the United Nations at that time, and an author of the resolution: "The notable omissions in regard to withdrawal... are the words 'all,' 'the' and 'the June 5, 1967 lines'... There is lacking a declaration requiring Israel to withdraw from all of the territories occupied by it on, and after, June 5, 1967... On certain aspects, the Resolution is less ambiguous than its withdrawal language. Resolution 242(1967) specifically calls for termination of all claims or states of belligerency ..." (Columbia Journal of International Law, Vol. 12, no. 2, 1973)). The disputed territory was not mentioned by the Lebanese government after the 1967 Six Day War, or the 1973 October War, as an occupation issue.]

All of the involved states, arguably, have failed to satisfy one or more of the four cornerstones of the resolution.

In 1981, the Farms were officially annexed by Israel, as part of the Golan Heights.http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/myths2006.pdf This unilateral annexation is not recognised by the UN or international community.

Analysis of the dispute

Coastal Road massacre

From 1968, the PLO and other Palestinian groups engaged in terrorist acts established a quasi-state in southern Lebanon, and used it to launch attacks against Israel. On March 11, 1978 members of the infiltrated Israel from Lebanon, and killed 37 Israeli civilians riding in a bus in the Tel Aviv area. In addition, 76 Israelis were injured, and an American nature photographer was killed on an Israeli beach â€" See Coastal Road massacre. This attack was the most deadly in a string of attacks launched from Lebanese territory. It triggered Israel's Operation Litani against PLO bases in southern Lebanon three days later.

Operation Litani and UN Resolution 425 (1978â€"2000)

Five days after Operation Litani began, UN Security Council Resolution 425 (1978) called upon Israel to: "withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory." The phrase "all territory" was used in Resolution 425, contrasting with the language in Resolution 242 (1967). Resolution 425 asked Israel to withdraw from Lebanon according to the line its forces were positioned at before the May 14 1978 invasion. (See: Blue Line)

On May 22 2000, Israel completed its withdrawal from the southern Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 425.http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/d744b47860e5c97e85256c40005d01d6/e25dae8e3ce54fb5852560e50079c708!OpenDocument The UN certified the completion of Israel's pullout.SECURITY COUNCIL ENDORSES SECRETARY-GENERAL'S CONCLUSION ON ISRAELI WITHDRAWAL FROM LEBANON AS OF 16 JUNE

Lebanon's claim (2000)

In 2000, in what appears to be the Lebanese government's first claim to the territory, Lebanon disputed Israel's compliance with UN Resolution 425 (1978). Lebanon claimed that the Shebaa Farms area was actually Lebanese, and that the Israelis should therefore withdraw from there as well. Lebanon asserted that the UN certification of the Israeli withdrawal was "invalid," because of Lebanon's claim to the Farms.

Lebanese officials point to land deeds, stamped by the Lebanese government, that were held by a number of area residents area in the 1940s and 1950s.

The new Lebanese claim to this area is one reason now asserted for Hezbollah's continuing conflict with Israel, and cross-border attacks. However, Hezbollah's spokesperson Hassan Ezzedin had this to say about the Farms: "If they go from Sheba'a, we will not stop fighting them. Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine...[Jews] can go back to Germany or wherever they came from."

Lebanese media reaction to Lebanon's claim

A Lebanese newspaper, however, described the land deed of one Shebaa resident as "handwritten and signed on a yellowing piece of paper in pencil and ink." Moreover, it is quite common for Lebanese to own land in Syria, and vice versa.http://www.meib.org/articles/0105_l1.htm

According to another Lebanese newspaper, Dar Al-Hayat, most Lebanese, in fact, had never heard or read about the Farms, even in their national school curricula. [4] "The issue over these farms was created to justify Resistance operations from Lebanon after the UN had created the Blue Line following Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon. The Shebaa farms were placed inside Syrian territory. It should be noted that Syria, which claims that the farms are Lebanese, has not presented a single document to the UN to prove it. More than that, Syria refuses to demarcate its borders with Lebanon."[5]

In fact, on February 13, 2006, a Beirut Times article reported that Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon and Lebanese parliament member, displayed the map as a "fake map," with the boundary shifted.http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=22163

All period maps save one, an apparent forgery, show the land as being on the Syrian side of the border. In contrast to this forged 1966 map, submitted to the UN in 2000, all published maps showed the area to be within Syria. Lebanese army maps published in 1961 and 1966 clearly show the Shebaa Farms area (including Zebdine, Fashkoul, Mougr Shebaa, and Ramta) as being on the Syrian side of the border. All known Syrian maps, and all known Lebanese Ministry of Tourism maps, also show the Lebanese-Syrian border running west of the Shebaa Farms, which would place Shebaa Farms to the east of the border and therefore within Syria.See map in body of article

Syrian position

Syria has supported Lebanon's claim that the Shebaa Farms are part of Lebanon and not Syrian territory at the United Nations and in offical goverment press releases.

On May 16, 2000, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouq al-Shara, indicated to Annan in a telephone conversation that the Syria supported Lebanon's claim.http://domino.un.org/unispal.NSF/5ba47a5c6cef541b802563e000493b8c/97bad2289146f58a852568e9006d99bd!OpenDocument This was made public in the UN Press Release SC/6878 of 18 June 2000 which stated 'Concerning the Shab'a farmlands, both Lebanon and Syria state that this land belongs to Lebanon.'

Support for the Lebanese claim was reiterated in January 21, 2006, by the President of Syria in a speech before the convention of the Arab Lawyers Union in Damascus and translated into English by SANA, the official state news agency of Syria. President Bashar al-Assad stated that there are two legal requirements for demarcating the border: firstly, the complaint must be registered with the United Nations; and secondly, engineers must precisely define the border. As neither Syria nor Lebanon have access to the area, al-Assad argues that resolution is waiting on Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territory.http://www.cggl.org/scripts/document.asp?id=46253

In August 1972, Syrian president Hafez al-Assad said, "Syria and Lebanon are a single country." Syria does not maintain an embassy in Beirut, which would indicate recognition of Lebanese independence.[6] Similarly, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University, Daniel Pipes (Editor of Middle East Quarterly),[7], and others have written about Syria's failure to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon. In addition, Lebanon does not appear as an independent state in maps in Syrian textbooks -- but rather as part of Greater Syria.http://www.middleeastinfo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=10404 Google Cachehttp://www.danielpipes.org/books/greaterchap.php [8][9][10][11].

The Shebaa Farms also appear as part of Syria on the large-scale map on the Syrian Ministry of Tourism's website.

UN reaction to Lebanon's claim

The United Nations agreed with Israel that the area is not covered by United Nations UN Security Council Resolution 425, which governed the withdrawal from Lebanon, inasmuch as the Farms are not Lebanese territory, and the UN certified Israel's pullout. At the same time the UN noted that its decision was "without prejudice to future border agreements between the Member States concerned," referring to Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.

The United Nations stated: "On 15 May 2000, the United Nations received a map, dated 1966, from the Government of Lebanon which reflected the Government's position that these farmlands were located in Lebanon. However, the United Nations is in possession of 10 other maps issued after 1966 by various Lebanese government institutions, including the Ministry of Defense and the army, all of which place the farmlands inside the Syrian Arab Republic. The United Nations has also examined six maps issued by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, including three maps since 1966, which place the farmlands inside the Syrian Arab Republic."

In a June 18, 2000 statement, the Security Council noted that Israel and Lebanon had confirmed to the Secretary General, that identification of the withdrawal line was solely the responsibility of the United Nations and that both sides would respect the line as identified. Moreover, the Security Council took note, "with serious concern," of reports of violations - by Hezbollahhttp://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/background.html -- not found in the UN release SC/6878 - please cite or remove - that had occurred since June 16, 2000, and called upon the parties to respect the line drawn by the United Nations.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in remarks to the press with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Foreign Minister of Spain Josep Pique, Foreign Minister of Russia Igor Ivanov, and European Union Senior Official Javier Solana in Madrid, Spain, on April 10, 2002, said: "With reference to the disturbances along the Blue Line emanating from Lebanese territory, I call on the Government of Lebanon and all relevant parties to condemn and prevent such violations. The Security Council itself confirmed in June 2000 that Israel had withdrawn from southern Lebanon in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions 425 and 426. Attacks at any point along the Blue Line, including in the Shebaa Farms area in the occupied Golan Heights, are violations of Security Council resolutions. Respect for decisions of the Security Council is the most basic requirement of international legitimacy."

More recently, the January 20, 2005 UN Secretary-General's report on Lebanon stated rather emphatically: "The continually asserted position of the Government of Lebanon that the Blue Line is not valid in the Shab'a farms area is not compatible with Security Council resolutions. The Council has recognized the Blue Line as valid for purposes of confirming Israel's withdrawal pursuant to resolution 425 (1978). The Government of Lebanon should heed the Council's repeated calls for the parties to respect the Blue Line in its entirety."http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sc8299.doc.htm Timur Goksel, a spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told the BBC that: "on all maps the UN has been able to find, the farms are seen on the Syrian side [of the border]."BBC News (London), 25 May 2000.

Reaction of the rest of world to Lebanon's claim

The Arab League backs the Lebanese claim, with the communique issued at Arab League's 13th session in 2001 asking for "complete Israeli withdrawal from ... Lebanese lands still under occupation, to internationally recognised borders, including the Shebaa Farms." http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/209.html|Title= Final communique issued of the Arab League's 13 session, Amman 1 April 2001

In 2002, while researching government archives in Paris, a fellow and historian from the Harry S. Truman Research Instititute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Asher Kaufman, came upon documents that he believes bear on the dispute. In one, French arbitrators and parties to a dispute wrote an agreement that suggested that the border put the Farms in Lebanon. Two other documents, from 1937 and [1939]], were reports from the administrative councillor of south Lebanon and the head of the Services Speciaux in Quneitra. They noted a discrepancy between the boundary, as determined by the 1:200,000 Ottoman map, and the "reality" in the region. They collected "unofficial information" from "various sources," and concluded that the area was Lebanese. Their conclusion, however, was based on the fact that: a) some area residents paid taxes to Lebanon, and b) three or four sheep pens in the Farms belonged to residents of the Lebanese village of Shaba.

After Kaufman published his findings, a 2002 editorial in the Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star chided the Lebanese academic community, and wrote that it was embarrassing that the discovery had been left to an Israeli researcher. http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/longforgotten-papers-may-offer-a-new-road-map-for-peace/2006/08/02/1154198206054.html

In 2002 Israeli officials said that Syria treated the area as its own over the years. They noted, for example, that a Syrian census in 1960 included the residents of the Farms.

On May 19, 2005, an off-the-record discussion with an unnamed senior diplomat from an unidentified country at the Washington DC-based Brookings Institution luncheon reported that: "in drawing the 'Blue Line' in 2000, the United Nations looked at more than ninety different maps of the region. Only one of them â€" which was deemed a forgery â€" showed the Shebaa Farms as Lebanese."http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/events/20050519.htm

Along similar lines, John Bolton, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, said on April 26, 2006: "I think the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence is that Shebaa Farms is Syrian territory."http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/65327.htm

Nancy Soderberg, the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, made a similar observation on July 21, 2006. She wrote that: "When it was clear the Israelis were going to withdraw fully from Lebanon, Syrian and Lebanese officials fabricated the fiction that this small, sparsely populated area was part of Lebanon. They even produced a crudely fabricated map to back up the dubious claim. I and United Nations officials went into the map room in the United Nations and looked at all the maps of the region in the files for decades. All showed the Shebaa Farms clearly in Syria."http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/072106/opl_3965102.shtml

In support for a ceasefire regarding the Lebanese/Israeli conflict that escalated sharply in the summer of 2006, former United States president Jimmy Carter wrote in the Washington Post on August 1: "Israel should withdraw from all Lebanese territory, including Shebaa Farms."http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/31/AR2006073100923.html

Miscellaneous

Shebaa Farms is also referred to as Shaba, Sheba, Cheba, Chiba, Shiba, Shabba, Chebba, Shebba, Chibba, Shibba, Shabaa, Shebaa, Chebaa, Schebaa, Shibaa, Shaaba, Sheeba, Cheeba, Shabah, Shebah, Shabbah, Sha'ba, Chab'a, Sheb'a, Shib'a, Sheb'aa, Sheba'a, and Shib'a Farms.

The Lebanese refer to the ridge at the northern end of the Shebaa Farms area as the Kafr Shuba Hills. The Israelis refer to the area as Har Dov (Bear Mountain, in Hebrew), and the Syrians call it Jabel Rous (Bear Mountain, in Arabic). The area has been known as Shebaa farms only in the last 6 years, named after the ridge which extends into Lebanon, and is east of the Lebanese village of Kafr Shuba.