ANALYSIS: Palestinians may have new tactic targeting Israel's borders

By Jeff Abramowitz Jun 6, 2011, 14:13 GMT

Tel Aviv - For 37 years Israel's ceasefire line with Syria on the Golan Heights was the country's quietest border, but now military and political officials fear this has changed, after protestors made another attempt Sunday to breach the fronter.

It was the second time in three weeks that the Golan frontier was the scene of violent clashes, as Palestinian Syrians marked the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1967 Six Day War - an event they call the naksa, or setback.

By the end of the day, 23 protestors were dead and 350 wounded.

The Six Day War broke out on June 5, 1967. By the time a ceasefire was called on June 10, Israel had captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria and the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt.

Israel has since returned Sinai to Egypt, and unilaterally withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, but remains on the Golan Heights. The West Bank is the focus of would-be negotiations over a future Palestinian state.

On May 15, as protestors marked the anniversary of Israel's founding, violent demonstrations took place in the same spot. Some protestors managed to breach the frontier and reach the Druze town of Majdal Shams.

But unlike the May 15 protests, on Sunday there were demonstrations only along the frontier with Syria.

'The pastoral period is over. The Golan Heights have stopped being Israel's quietest front,' analyst Alex Fishman said Monday.

The protestors insist they are standing up for their rights, specifically their right to return to the homes from which their parents and grandparents fled in the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war, an expression of the yearning to return to their ancestral homeland.

Israel predictably sees things differently. Israel believes that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime is behind the demonstrations, trying to divert attention away from the bloody crackdown by Syrian forces on pro-democracy activists.

'As long as President Assad is fighting for his regime, and maybe his life, the Golan Heights will not drop from the headlines,' Fishman wrote Monday in the Yediot Ahronot daily.

'The Syrians will urge the Palestinians to clash with the Israel Defence Force (IDF) along the border in an attempt to create permanent blazes that will draw internal and global attention away from the profound crisis in Syria,' he wrote.

Israel also made much of the claim by the US-based opposition Reform Party of Syria that the Syrian government had paid the demonstrators 1,000 dollars each to attend the protest, and offered 10,000 dollars to the families of anyone killed.

Syrian-based Palestinian businessman Yasser Kaschlak scoffed at the claim.

'Who would risk their life for a bit of money,' he asked.

Whether the attempts to point the finger directly at Assad are justified or not, there is no doubt the Assad regime did nothing to prevent the protests.

This was in contrast to the Lebanese government, which declared its border area with Israel a closed military area and prevented demonstrators from reaching the frontier.

Assad may also have been attempting to deflect criticism that his regime was shooting demonstrators, rather than 'liberating the Golan.'

If the border protests do continue, Israel is faced with a huge dilemma - maintaining control over its borders, while at the same time limiting casualties among the demonstrators on the other.

Israel's fear is that the protests - non-violent demonstrations along Israel's frontiers - could mark a new tactic in the Palestinians' fight against Israel's occupation.

This could intensify as September, when Palestinians plan on asking the UN to ratify a Palestinian state, approaches.

'The war over the fences ... can be expected to intensify in the coming months,' analyst Yoav Limor noted.

And if there are casualties on a regular basis, Israel's international legitimacy will be further eroded.

Read more about Naksa