UN observers monitoring the zone
number about one thousand. An "Israeli officer" told a Mcclatchy reporter on
last November 14 that the rebels in the zone are "fewer than 1,000 fighters." Canada withdrew its contingent of monitors last
September; Japan
followed suit in January. In the previous month, France's
ambassador to the UN, GÃ ©rard Araud, warned the UN peacekeeping force on the
Golan may "collapse," according to The Times of Israel, citing the London --
based Arabic daily of Al -- Hayat.
The 1974 armistice agreement
prohibits the Syrian government from engaging in military activity within the
buffer zone; if it does it would risk a military confrontation with Israel and, according to Moshe Maoz,
professor emeritus at Jerusalem's Hebrew University,
"The Syrian army doesn't have any interest in provoking Israel," because "Syria has enough problems."
However it would be anybody's guess to
know for how long Syria
could tolerate turning the UN monitored demilitarized buffer zone, with Israeli
closed eyes, into a terrorist safe haven and into a corridor of supply linking
the rebels in Lebanon to
their "brethren" in southern Syria.
Israel did not challenge
militarily the presence of the al -- Qaeda -- linked rebels on its side of the
supposedly demilitarized zone nor did it complain to or ask the United Nations
for a reinforcement of the UN monitors there.
Ironically, Israel cites the presence of those same rebels
along the borders of the Israeli -- occupied Golan Heights as the pretext to
justify "considering creating a buffer zone" inside Syria!
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir
Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
* Email address removed
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