For some decades, one of the biggest
obstacles to any kind of peaceable relations between
Israel and
Syria is Israel's continued occupation of the
Golan Heights, a 1250 square kilometer chunk of land on the border between the two countries. Israel took over the land in one of the
innumerable wars between them, and has neither attempted to officially
annex it, nor offered to
return it. Israel is reluctant to return the land because of its semi-
mountainous heights (soaring 1700 feet above the Israeli land on the other side of the border), which gives whoever possesses the land the
high ground. If you have any doubt about the
value of that, you need no more than watch the end of
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith to what happens when you go against the holder of the high ground.
So here's my
thinking:
peace is better than a
perpetual state of
war, and one of the main things (supposedly) holding up peace between Israel and Syria is this chunk of land. So I think Israel should give it back - but with a condition. Before they give it back, Israel should take away the thing that makes the land a threat, which is its height.
So in short I'm saying Israel should bring in the
blasting caps and the
pickaxes and the
dump trucks and take down the mountain. Carefully, mind you, since there are some
archaeological treasures in the area which should be preserved and returned to their original
latitude and
longitude once all that
altitude has been carted away. Likewise, although so massive a project is bound to bring some upheaval to the
ecosystem, it should be done in the most
eco-friendly way possible, with the
restoration of the
lowered land to its
longstanding level of
lushness. And, really, while a piece of land that big is being dug up, keep an eye out for
artifacts and
fossils and maybe some
diamonds or other goodies.
Now, what to do with the rubble? Here's a few ideas: build up the land on the Israeli side of the border, maybe a
cliff of just a few hundred feet. Build up some
ports and
harbors and stuff on that meager Israeli
coastline. Airlift it to countries that face a serious
shortage of piles of rock. Who knows. Who cares, just as long as they don't throw it in the ocean.
If Syria doesn't like this idea, well that's too darn bad since they don't have
what it takes to retrieve the land by force. If Israel doesn't like this idea, well then they should stop
carping when the rest of the world complains about this particular
occupation of land. This leads me to one other
option. Since Israelis have turned out to be
wizards of
transformation in turning seaside
desert into fertile land, if they can't get on in the
Middle East then they should just buy
Baja California from
Mexico and work that
magic there.