Israel to add settlers in Golan
Syria protests plans for big expansion in annexed territory
Craig S. Smith, New York Times
Thursday, January 1, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
Jerusalem -- Israel plans a major expansion of Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights, the government confirmed Wednesday. The announcement angered Syria, from which Israel seized the territory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The plan, approved two weeks ago and disclosed Tuesday, comes just two months after Syria's president, Bashar Assad, called for renewed peace talks between his country and Israel.
Israeli government officials said the expansion plan had been in the works for months and denied that its approval was intended as a response to Assad's vague proposal, made during an interview with the New York Times.
Assad said in the interview that he wished to resume talks, broken off nearly three years ago, on returning the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for security guarantees to Israel.
But the Israeli agriculture minister, Yisrael Katz, who heads the government's settlement committee, told Israeli radio and television Wednesday that the plan was meant to send Assad the message that "the Golan is an inseparable part of the State of Israel, and we have no intention to give up our hold."
Katz's spokesman, Benni Romm, said late Wednesday that "the message for the terrorist, Assad," is that there is a cost for "his harboring terrorists." In October Israel attacked what it described as a terrorist training camp in Syria.
The expansion plans would pour about $90 million into existing settlements in the 720-square-mile territory and bring in 900 Jewish families over the next three years. The investment would focus on developing agriculture and tourism. The new settlers would increase the number of Israelis in the thinly populated highland area by about a quarter.
