Plans for 9 new Israeli settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan
Syria-Israel, Politics, 8/6/2002

The Israeli forces are removing the remains of a Syrian village to the north of the occupied Golan in order to build a new settlement of 150 houses.

News reports from the Golan said that work will start on other nine settlements before the end of this year.

The chairman of the so called "the settlements council" in the Golan said that the cost of a house of 140 meters area is $ 140,000. This is, however, the third of the cost of a similar house in Tel Aviv.

He said that more than 2500 applications arrived at the "settlements council" since the project had started, and that more than 250 settlers had already paid for it.

One researcher said that the turnout by he Israeli settlers to buy houses in the occupied Syrian Golan goes back to their desire to gain from compensations when Israel withdraw from it. An evidence on that, he said, that large number of the Israelis bought in 1992, following the Madrid peace conference, houses in the Golan, on the hope of achieving gains from compensations to be paid by the Israeli government to them upon its pullout from the Golan.

To this effect, the spokesman for Israel's Peace Now movement, Didi Rediz, criticized the Israeli settlement in the Golan, considering it as a waste of resources and will lead by the ultimate end to catastrophe the day when Israel withdraws from the Golan.

He explained that 450 Israeli families have settled in 2001 in one of the 33 Israeli settlements in the Golan, and this figure is expected to reach this year 700 families.

Worthy mentioning that the total number of settlers has recently been estimated at 19,000, which is much less than the 100,000 settlers, as estimated by Israel.

Previous Stories:
  UN committee: Syrians in Golan live in very bad besiege conditions   (7/26/2002)
  Syrian foreign ministry statement before the fact finding commission   (7/5/2002)
  Al-Sharq al-Awsat: the next war against Syria   (7/1/2002)

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