| Hammam Yousef | Architect/Designer | Czech Republic |
Re: ‘Syria's Occupied Golan Heights’
Why should Israel return the Golan to Syria?
The answer is so obvious and simple, that it is confusing to the mind to have that question in the first place!
What would be the alternative to the simple answer, i.e. returning the Golan to its rightful owners.
I believe it would be a state of continuous instability, hatred and bitterness. But, come to think of it, what is there to guarantee that these very feelings will disappear at the moment Israel returns the Golan? There are no guarantees, for no one can, or even try to, speak on behalf of all those who have been maimed and victimized, because of the world assault on the crumbling Ottoman Empire, manifesting itself later in the confiscation of land and implanting a heterogeneous foreign state in the fragile weakened body of the Arab world.
But Then! We just have to have the courage to do what is right regardless of all that, or anything else.
Are my words incomprehensible? Are my feelings worthless? What if I represented millions who feel the same way?
Psychologists explain that a father’s slap to a child that lasts one second requires six months for the child to regain confidence in his father. How long in your opinion will Syrians, if not Arabs, need to regain their balance and their faith in the international community which contributed to the establishment of the intrusive entity (Israel) and continues contributing to the shredding of the Arab world.
Since the eviction of Palestinians and Syrians from their lands by Israel, the whole Arab world have born the cost of this arrogant offensive on the most basic of human rights; the right to not be kicked out of one’s own home and one’s own land simply because the offender can, and the defender can not defend his rights. Therefore, the Golan issue is no longer something that the Syrians can resolve on their own nor is the Jerusalem and Palestine issues confined to Palestinians to resolve on their own.
Why can the Zionist movement claim the historic right of return for Jews to the ??promised land? which they did not forget for thousands of years, yet Muslim and non-Muslim Arabs -who also lived on the very same land for thousands of years- can not claim their right to continue living on it?! Who can prove that a large percentage of those Christians, and later on Muslims, were not originally of Jewish origins who chose to follow the Christ, and later to believe in Mohammed??s prophecy! Who can say that Palestinians, or at least, large percentage of them, did not also have Jewish origins? And due to historical factors and their own choice, remained on their land and changed their beliefs by becoming Christians and Muslims, and were always the owners of the land.
When the Palestinians were evicted from their lands by various cruel means, including massacres, starvation, expulsion and blockade, they were not forth of fifth generation that was born on that land. They were at least over fifty generations there!! This, however, is totally ignored while we feel sorry for the Israeli forth or fifth generation that was born on other peoples land! A land on which the war of occupation, colonization and expulsion did not cease since the Haganah and Stern gangs started killing the innocent and unarmed Palestinians some sixty years ago!
With that in mind, for heaven??s sake, what can we say to the original owners of this land!? And what logic can be used?!
Should we beg for the return of the Golan? Why? And is the Syrian regime that lost the Golan genuinely concerned with its return or with the well being of the inhabitants of the Golan?! Why this insult to our intelligence?
What I want to say to an “Israeli Citizen” who enjoys conscience and sound thinking, is the following:
If the occupier returns the land he took by illegal means to its proper owners, it will count as a genuine human act that has an intrinsic obvious inevitability, just like the proof that the sun has risen is the daylight itself, to require further elaboration would be unwarranted. Returning the occupied lands is clearly a self-justified act that is accepted and expected by all humans. It does not require an appreciation and indebtedness to the generosity of the confiscator!
However, if the occupier insisted on usurping the rights and territories without justification, then shame on the human race for not being up to the standards which safeguard the lives, properties, rights and honor of its members. But the lessons of history will catch up to us and will drag us in its inevitability if we did not choose to become proactive instead of reactive. And while, Israel is busy digging her grave by her own hands with frantic dedication and sacrifice, History will be laughing and crying simultaneously at the black tragicomedy in which humans have put themselves in!
If you return the Golan then you will be honoring your selves. And if you don’t, you would be harming yourself before causing harm to others. If we can not obtain our rights today, there might come a time that will empower and conspire with us as it did with you. But those who will pay the cost from their human essence and souls would be both of us; we and you… as all of us on this earth are still paying the price of narrow vision, impatience, and surrendering to greed that can not ever be satisfied!
(3 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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