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Syria removes roadblocks on Damascus-Golan road

On June 26, Syria opened the Damascus-Golan road to Quneitra to civilian traffic for the first time since the Six-Day War of 1967. No announcement was made. The dozens of military roadblocks studding the 60 km high road connecting the capital with the Syrian part of Golan for 40 years were removed, except for two – one at the entrance to Qunetra from the Syrian end and one at the town’s exit to Israeli Golan. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report that this measure went mostly unnoticed, although it made Israeli military intelligence sit up.

Until this week, civilian traffic heading towards Syria’s Golan border with Israel was discouraged by the government in Damascus; a traveler needed eight different pieces of paper and endless waits to get past the military roadblocks. All of a sudden, the powers-that-be in the Syrian capital decided to allow civilians free passage to Golan meaning preparations are complete for the launch of a cross-border campaign of terror in the Israel sector of the territory. Such a campaign could quickly escalate into a full-scale war.

The day the road was opened, Syria celebrated the 33rd anniversary of Quneitra’s liberation, i.e. the signing of the armistice agreement with Israel which delineated the provisional border between the two countries and ended the 1973 Yom Kippur war and ensuing war of attrition. Quneitra, which was captured by Israel in 1967, was ceded to Syria on condition it was kept demilitarized.

The Syrian official publication Tishreen marked the event by writing:

Since the first moment of taking oath as President of the Republic, Bashar Al-Assad made it clear that the Golan always remains in the center until it returns to the homeland, Syria. This is an inevitable day. The return of Golan to Syria is non-negotiable.

Under such circumstances in which the Israelis continue to reject all Arab bids for reaching a just and comprehensive peace settlement, the option of national resistance remains the only open legitimate course for the liberation of the occupied Arab lands and the restoration of usurped rights.

Golan, the biblical Bashan, is a narrow basalt plateau, part of the Sea of Galilee’s catchment basin, which provides 30% of Israel’s water. Israeli jurisdiction was formally extended to Golan in 1981.

In speeches he made in the last three months, Bashar Assad made a point of referring to the mounting pressure of refugees from Golan living in Syria to take “liberation” in their own hands. Official Syrian figures put the number of “Golan Heights refugees” at 410,000, a figure which is grossly exaggerated to highlight their suffering. The real refugee figure from this tiny sliver of 1,070 sq. km. of land is no more than 60-70,000, around half of whom are crowded into the Wafadin camp on the western outskirts of Damascus.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources disclose that a year ago, in June 2006, Syrian military intelligence recruited several hundred Golan refugees for a new framework called the Front for the Liberation of the Golan Heights. They were trained for terror operations, blowing up roads and bridges, attacks on military camps and convoys and hostage-taking. Three months ago, the Front struck for the first time, detonating an explosive device on the border fence as an Israeli patrol passed by.

Israeli and Western military and intelligence interpret the opening of the Damascus-Quneitra highway to civilians as a gambit to give the Front free rein to cross into Israeli Golan for terrorist operations against civilian and military targets, without Syria being held responsible. This gives the Assad government an alibi for claiming it has no control over the traffic traversing the road to the border, the same pretext it has used for years in allowing terrorists, arms and money to infiltrate Iraq and Lebanon.

Israel can be expected to be a lot less tolerant of Syrian attacks on the Golan than the Americans are in Iraq - whatever the name of the “resistance” framework.

Syria removes roadblocks on Damascus-Golan road (http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1288)

 Syria removing military checkpoints in Golan
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST    Jul. 7, 2007

The London based Al-Hayat reported Saturday that Israel was "concerned" that Syria's decision to remove military checkpoints on the road to Kuneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights could be a preparation for war.

According to the report, the checkpoints in question had been in place for 40 years, ever since the Six Day War.

Al-Hayat also claimed that that foreign journalists were barred from covering IDF maneuvers conducted on the Golan Heights.

The newspaper also reported that Israel had blocked access to areas on the Golan Heights from which villages and towns were visible. The report also listed the equipment the IDF had left in place, which included bulldozers and 70 tank outposts.

The report came two days after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni addressed Syrian concerns that Israel planned to attack the country. Livni said that the IDF was conducting exercises and nothing more.

Speaking at a meeting with her Danish counterpart, Per Stig Moller, Livni said that Israel wanted to live in peace with its neighbors.

"Israel, unfortunately, has to be constantly prepared. The IDF's job is to protect Israeli citizens, and for this it must train, and for this exercises were created. It would be a shame… to interpret this otherwise," Livni said.

Also on Saturday, Dr. Ibrahim Suleiman - a Syrian-American who appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee several months ago reiterated what he told Channel 10 news at the time, saying [Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert is too weak politically to achieve peace with Syria.

In an interview to the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabiye, Suleiman said that officials in Israel who opposed peace with Syria had leaked reports of his meetings with former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel in order to "torpedo" any possible talks.

"If [Syrian President] Bashar Assad repeats that he's interested in peace with Israel, he means it," Suleiman said. He added that peace between Israel and Syria was the key to stabilizing the Middle East, including Iraq and Lebanon, and would renew contact between Israel and the Palestinians.

Following Suleiman's visit, sponsored by Meretz MK Zehava Gal-On and much publicized in the Israeli media, Syrian sources were quick to dismiss Suleiman as a "non-entity," saying that he represented "no one but himself" and that he was "not speaking for the Syrian people."

The Syrian regime contradicted both Suleiman's statements and itself by alternating statements of a will to negotiate peace and threats to take back the Golan by Mukawama - resistance in Arabic - a phrase that can mean anything from a limited terror campaign to all-out war. Threats of Mukawama by the Syrian foreign minitstry and other top Syrian officials sometimes arrived within days from declarations that Syria seeks nothing but peace.

The constant factor in Syrian foreign policy remains its arming of Hizbullah, a violation of UN resolution 1731 from August 2006, which prohibits any country from rearming the terrorist Shi'ite Organization

Farid Ghadri, president of the Reform Part of Syria, based in Washington DC, visited Israel in June and also appeared the FADC. In his address there, Ghadri urged Israel to avoid making peace with a totalitarian Syrian regime, as this would constitute "Betrayal of the Syrian people."

Last week, the Golani Infantry Brigade held its training-concluding drill in the Golan Heights. The drill summarized 70 days of training which focused on practicing for battle against a Syrian-Lebanese constellation.

The drill was widely covered in the Syrian media, even prompting a Syrian radio analyst to say that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was lying in his statements that Israel seeks peaceful relations with Syria. The analyst said it was clear the Golani drill constituted preparation for an Israeli attack.

Syria removing military checkpoints in Golan (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1183459215876&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

Roadblocks have been removed for the first time in 40 years, a generation.  Kinda makes your heart start pumping a little faster, doesn't it? 

Matthew 24:34 Truly I tell you, this generation (the whole multitude of people living at the same time, in a definite, given period) will not pass away till all these things taken together take place.