By Rym Ghazal
Source: Daily Star staff, 25-5-2005
SHIBAA FARMS: To a farmer, his land is his heart, his pride and his home, says Omar Qassim Hashim, a farmer from the Shibaa Farms who was born on the coveted territory and hopes to die there. With the most recent flare-up of violence taking place last week between "Israel" and Hizbullah, with both exchanging barrages of shells and rocket fire across the disputed border zone, Hashim is hopeful for a silver lining amid all the smoke.
Hashim, 70, hasn`t seen his farm, Khalet Ghazali, in over seven years.
He says: "Maybe the new bombardments will wake up the rest of Lebanon and it will get them to help us get back our farms," adding, "I still remember my farm like I remember my alphabet."
Khalet Ghazali is one of 14 properties commonly known as the Shibaa Farms, a disputed area located south of Shibaa, a Lebanese village on the western slopes of Mount Hermon where Syria, Lebanon and "Israel" meet.
Hashim, like all Shibaa`s residents, has been repeating the same story for decades of how "Israel" "bit by bit stole" the Shibaa Farms starting back in 1967 during the Arab-"Israel" war until it finally took full control of the area in 1970.
According to Shibaa mukhtar Ali Hussain Daher, who has been gathering all the pertaining land deeds and passing them on to Lebanese officials in the hopes of reclaiming the farms, "Nothing has been done about the Shibaa Farms for 35 years, but now I think things will be changing."
He adds: "There is a new attitude in Lebanon where the Lebanese want to open a totally new page in history and deal with all the issues from the past. So my hopes are that given the push for Lebanon`s independence, [recovering the] Shibaa Farms will be part of that independence."
The area known as Shibaa Farms is some 14 kilometers in length by two kilometers wide and was excluded from the "Israeli" withdrawal of Southern Lebanon in May 2000. Further complicating the matter is that the issue of who exactly owns the area remains in dispute.
Lebanon and Syria say the farms are Lebanese and therefore demand "Israeli" forces to leave the area. However, the UN says the land is Syrian territory.
While maps exist from the 1960s showing the farms as belonging to Syria, officials in Damascus insist Syria had officially given the land to Lebanon in 1951.
In an official letter to the UN Secretary General on April 26, 2005, Syrian Foreign Affairs Minister Farouk Sharaa wrote: "Syria urges the [Security] Council to make every effort and evince the same determination and seriousness in order to implement the remaining Security Council Resolutions, namely those relevant to the complete withdrawal of the "Israeli" forces from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, and the Lebanese Shibaa Farms ... "
But according to the UN, the Secretary General and the Security Council confirmed ""Israel"`s full withdrawal" from all Lebanese territory, in accordance with Resolution 425, in 2000!?
One UN official, on condition of anonymity, said: "As regards the so-called Shibaa Farms, the international community, including "Israel", does not contest the fact that it is occupied territory. But the Shibaa Farms are not Lebanese land; they were occupied from Syria in 1967!?"
The official adds: "Only a bilateral agreement on the definition of borders between the governments of Syria and Lebanon, ratified by both Parliaments, and registered at the United Nations could change the status of the Shibaa Farms."
The issue of Shibaa farms is not really about ownership, says Nizar Hamzeh, a political scientist at the American University in Beirut, but rather "about political strategies."
He says: "It involves the bigger picture of peace negotiations between "Israel" and Syria and Shibaa Farms may be a bargaining chip to get back the Golan Heights. But definitely it is not part of any Syrian revenge against Lebanon when Syria delays putting forth official papers to the UN."
While the debate continues among government officials, on the ground, for the residents of Shibaa, their ownership of the farms is indisputable.
Unfolding a photocopy of a deed clearly issued by Lebanese authorities verifying his ownership of the 300-square-meter Khalet Ghazali farm, Hashim says: "They are Lebanese and we have the documents to prove it."
Pointing to a bowl of cherries gathered from a farm near Shibaa, he adds: "These cherries aren`t nearly as good as the ones I used to gather from my Khalet Ghazali."
Hashim continues on about the quality of his land`s wheat, olives, grapes, figs and peaches, reminiscing on days long-passed where "20 families worked together and lived on and from the farm."
Hashim`s wife, Um Yousif, has her own memories of life on the farm: "I actually don`t miss baking 50 kilos of bread everyday!" she laughs, exposing her heavily creased hands.
She adds: "Of course I want our family farm back, as we never had to buy anything; we ate and lived off our farm. But there is no denying that working on the farm was a lot of hard work."
According to Um Yousif, in addition to Khalet Ghazali, "Israel" occupied her own family`s property and transformed it into a ski resort.
She says: "How absolutely insulting, a farmer`s dignity is in his farm."
Um Yousif, like almost all Shibaa residents, is pleased with Hizbullah`s "undying resistance" against "Israel", and hopes the party will continue its armed struggle against "Israel" until the Shibaa Farms are liberated.
However, Hizbullah, presently under heavy international pressure to cast aside its weapons, has come under even greater criticism for stating it will not disarm even if the Shibaa Farms are liberated.
But Sheikh Khodr Noureddine, a member of the resistance group`s politburo, says: "It is too early to make any final judgments as to what will happen with disarmament if Shibaa Farms do get liberated."
He adds: "Not once did the UN resolution protect Lebanese from killing and from attacks, and so until the resolutions actually lead to peace, we will keep up the resistance."
The dispute over Shibaa Farms can be traced back to a failure by the French mandate government to properly demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria in 1920s.
The area`s inhabitants have always regarded themselves as part of Lebanon, paying taxes to the Lebanese government, but the question of borders wasn`t given much attention by the Lebanese government even after the1967 War or the 1973 war as an occupation issue. It appears to have arisen only as a result of the "Israeli" withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000.