Shebaa Farms

Mount Hermon, at the corner where Syria, Lebanon and Israel meet. It is about 14 km in length and 2 km in width, at altitudes of 400 to 2,000 meters. This fertile farm land produces barley, fruits and vegetables. The village of Shebaa is not part of the Shebaa Farms area.

The region remained under Israeli control after the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah leaders and the Lebanese government considers the Shebaa Farms to be part of Lebanon. Israel considers the Shebaa Farms to be part of the Golan Heights. Syrian authorities consider Shebaa Farms as part of Lebanon in contradiction to the 1949 Armistice Agreements.

Israel took control of Shebaa Farms during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, in which Syria but not Lebanon took part, and says the area is not covered by United Nations UN Security Council Resolution 425 that governs its withdrawal from southern Lebanon. This resolution asks for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon according to the line it's forces were positioned at before the May 14 1978 invasion. (See: Blue Line (Lebanon))

The United Nations Security Council has accepted a report from the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, that the Israeli army has withdrawn from all Lebanese territory. However, the UN has not ruled on the border, though its position would imply that the Shebaa Farms is not Lebanese:

"The United Nations has not been delineating or demarcating the border between Lebanon and Israel - or between Lebanon and Syria for that matter. Border demarcation is something that can only be done between States. - But it was necessary for the UN to mark a withdrawal line on the ground - the so-called "blue line". Otherwise, how could we know whether or not the Israelis had withdrawn?" - Kofi Annan, 19 June 2000 ()

"There seems to be no official record of an international boundary agreement between Lebanon and Syria that could easily establish the line for purposes of confirming the withdrawal," Kofi Annan 25 May 2000

"Mr Annan has proposed that all sides should adopt the line drawn after the 1974 Yom Kippur war, pending a permanent delineation of the border."

"The UN is saying that on all maps the UN has been able to find, the farms are seen on the Syrian side." Timur Goksel, spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)

Lebanon and Syria regard this UN certification of the withdrawal as invalid because of Lebanon's claim to the Shebaa Farms.

However, Lebanese and Syrian officials insisted that Syria had officially granted the area of Shebaa Farms to Lebanon in 1951. Lebanese officials point to land deeds, stamped by the Lebanese government, held by a number of residents in the area.

Syria has officially acknowledged the Farms are Lebanese.

Lebanese army maps published in 1961 and 1966 specifically pinpoint several of the Shebaa Farms, including Zebdine, Fashkoul, Mougr Shebaa and Ramta, all of which are designated as being Lebanese. Lebanese Ministry of Tourism maps also show the Lebanese-Syrian border running west of the Shebaa Farms, which would place Shebaa Farms to the east of the border and therefore within Syria. (See )

Nonetheless, the United Nations states:

"On 15 May 2000, the United Nations received a map, dated 1966, from the Government of Lebanon which reflected the Government's position that these farmlands were located in Lebanon. However, the United Nations is in possession of 10 other maps issued after 1966 by various Lebanese government institutions, including the Ministry of Defense and the army, all of which place the farmlands inside the Syrian Arab Republic. The United Nations has also examined six maps issued by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, including three maps since 1966, which place the farmlands inside the Syrian Arab Republic."

Origins

The dispute over the sovereignty of the Shebaa Farms originated with the failure of the French mandatory government to properly demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria. Documents from the 1920s and 1930s show that the local inhabitants regarded themselves part of Lebanon, for example paying taxes to the Lebanese government, but that French officials often expressed confusion on the question of where the border lay. A French official in 1939 expressed the belief that the uncertainty was sure to cause trouble in the future. When detailed maps of the border region were finally prepared by the French and British military administration during WWII, they showed the region in Syria, but the commission responsible for demarcating the border did not act decisively on the dispute before the French mandate ended in 1946. When the newly formed Lebanese and Syrian governments asked the French government for official information on their common border, it was revealed that almost nothing existed. Border disputes arose frequently, leading to the formation of a joint Lebanese-Syrian border demarcation commission. That commission decided in 1964 to include the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon, but apparently no official demarcation of the border actually occurred and the older maps showing the Shebaa Farms in Syria continued to be used. The local residents continued to regard themselves as Lebanese and the Lebanese government agreed but showed little interest. However, the Syrian government imposed itself on the region, at one point forcibly replacing the villagers' Lebanese identity cards with Syrian ones. At the time of the 1967 war, the region was under effective Syrian control.