Asher Kaufman

Political boundaries, those borderlines on maps and often literally on the ground that envelop state territories, have shaped much of sociopolitical history since the 17th century. What had started primarily as a European project gradually spread throughout the globe via colonialism to the point that we cannot think about our world — even in the era of globalization, borderless markets, multinational corporations, and a flow of capital and information — absent the prism of state territorial boundaries. Even in the post-Cold War era, the modern sovereign state continues to play a major role in the global system, despite the fact that some academics in Europe and North America have forecast the decline of the nation-state. We can speak today about the permeability of a few political boundaries (not surprisingly they are in Europe and North America), but by no means can we speak about their disappearance.

In short, the state still plays a major role in the global system, and state boundaries — one of the most visible expressions of state sovereignty — continue to be fundamental features in international, national, and regional arenas. There are more than 125 border disputes between sovereign states. Many are volatile, threatening regional and sometimes global stability. Lord George Curzon, in his famous 1908 “Frontiers” lecture, defined political borders as “the razor’s edge on which hangs suspended the modern issues of war and peace, of life and death to nations.” Even if borders today are not quite the razor’s edge of war and peace, border conflicts, many of which contribute to regional instability, deserve the close attention of peace researchers.

In the Middle East, boundaries and sovereignty still play prime roles at state and societal levels. Witness flashpoints such as Iraq and the Palestinian occupied territories. The 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel added another trouble spot to a region plagued by instability and conflict. The roots and consequences of this war, which started on July 12 with a cross-border operation of the Shiite organization into Israeli sovereign territory, go beyond the Israeli-Lebanese borderline. Yet, it is the political boundaries separating Israel, Lebanon (and Syria) that served not only as the arena of the confrontation but also as an important pretext for the war.

While the Israeli-Hezbollah war attracted widespread attention, the borders shared by Syria, Lebanon and Israel have been in the spotlight since 1990. In that year, Lebanon terminated 15 years of gruesome civil war and started to reassemble its broken pieces. This required, among other things, re-gaining sovereignty from two occupying foreign countries, Israel and Syria. In May 2000, after almost 18 years of guerilla warfare conducted by Hezbollah, Israel finally withdrew from Lebanon. Five years later, it was Syria’s turn to withdraw from Lebanon, though this was done in a different context and on different terms. The withdrawal of Israel and Syria from Lebanon rekindled old border conflicts between these three countries and launched new ones. And so, since May 2000, contested matters of sovereignty, border demarcation, and the colonial legacy of Greater Syria — the area that roughly corresponds to modern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel — have resurfaced and preoccupied the minds and energies of the states involved, the international community, and communities along these political borderlines.

My current project, “Mapping Greater Syria: Boundaries, Identities and Conflict in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine,” was inspired by these contemporary conflicts. I analyze them through a historical prism, going back to the beginning of the 19th century and to the introduction of modern cartography in the region. This was also when the term “Greater Syria” started to take shape, first in European colonial imagination and later within local elites. Both groups developed spatial perceptions about the “natural boundaries” of this Greater Syria and about the distinct ethnic uniqueness of its inhabitants. At the beginning of the 20th century the idea of Greater Syria began to be deconstructed into separate political entities, but it never disappeared from intellectual and political discourse in the region.

Borders may have a static image, but I explore them as sites at which, and through which, socio-spatial differences are communicated and contested. In other words, my study explores these boundaries not just as the political limits of Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, but rather as socio-territorial constructs that are constantly being shaped by the political centers as well as by peripheral and border communities of the three countries.

Take, for example, the debate over the demarcation of the boundary between Syria and Lebanon. The Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2005 brought to the fore the fact that the boundary between these two states had never been officially determined. France, the creator and the mandatory power of the two states, did not bother to demarcate their shared border. The border remained unmarked even after Lebanon and Syria attained independence in 1943 and 1946, respectively, owing to Syria’s reluctance to officially accept Lebanese independence. In addition, the Lebanese state neglected the periphery of the country, including the border with Syria.

In order to regulate the diplomatic relations between the states as Lebanon demands, the two countries need to establish a joint demarcation commission. Such a commission would determine their shared boundary and produce a long-overdue, internationally recognized border treaty. This Lebanese demand is strongly supported by the United Nations and has produced one of the few recent cases of U.S.-European diplomatic cooperation in the Middle East.

But little in the Middle East is that straightforward. Additional
factors make such a border demarcation project
challenging.

Most important is the border dispute between Israel, Lebanon, and Syria over the Shebaa farms. This small piece of land (about 16 square miles) was occupied by Israel in the 1967 war along with the rest of the Syrian Golan Heights. In May 2000, when Israel withdrew from South Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite organization, followed by the Lebanese government, declared that the Shebaa farms are Lebanese and demanded Israeli withdrawal from them. Israel, on the other hand, claimed that the area was part of the Golan Heights and could be negotiated only in the context of peace talks between Israel and Syria. The United Nations sided with Israel and concluded that the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon was indeed complete. The UN, however, acknowledged that it is impossible to determine sovereignty in the region for the simple reason that there has never been any border treaty between Syria and Lebanon. In the absence of a treaty, the UN relied on existing maps, which placed the Shebaa farms within the Syrian Golan Heights.

The origin of this dispute dates back to the French colonial period. While France never bothered to demarcate the shared border of Syria and Lebanon, it did draw maps. A French colonial project in 1862 produced the first map of ”modern Lebanon.” This map helped to facilitate the ideal of a separate Lebanese political entity. This same map served as the basis for the delineation of the boundary line between Syria and Lebanon, causing many border irregularities, including the area of the Shebaa farms.

Subsequent maps created during the period of the French mandate in the 1920s and 1930s did not resolve these irregularities. The Syrian-Lebanese border was marked on these maps unprofessionally, using old data and without sending out surveying teams, as required by all modern border determination projects. The maps placed the Shebaa farms within Syria, while, for all practical matters, the owners and residents of the farms considered themselves to be Lebanese citizens. They conducted their administrative affairs in Lebanon, paid taxes to Beirut, and held Lebanese identity cards. During the 1950s Syria exploited this border anomaly and took control of this area, establishing military posts in the farms and, in a 1960 census, even registered residents as Syrian citizens.

This problem could have remained fairly limited in scope, but with the 1967 occupation of the region by Israel, the Shebaa imbroglio entered the orbit of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since 2000, Hezbollah has used it as a pretext to continue its armed struggle against Israel. Adding to the complexity, since Syria was forced to leave Lebanon in May 2005, the Shebaa farms controversy has also been used by Damascus as a tool against its former protégée, Lebanon. Syria has refused to officially demarcate the border in that area and rejected the disarmament of Hezbollah. Keeping this conflict alive serves the interests of Syria by tying the fate of the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967, with the Shebaa farms. Additionally, having aspirations to remain relevant and dominant in the regional struggle for power, Syria has a clear interest to maintain its influence within Lebanese domestic politics through the support of Hezbollah’s struggle in the Shebaa farms.

The Shebaa farms border dispute highlights the role played by the territorial and political periphery in Lebanon in the construction of Lebanese national discourse and the impact of the borderline on border communities in the three countries. To examine these issues, I draw on the interdisciplinary field of Border Studies which, among other things, brings border communities and borderlands into the forefront of the discussion on state formation. From this perspective, I trace how the Shiite community, which had been politically and spatially marginalized by Lebanese elites, used a marginal piece of territory — the Shebaa farms — to dictate Lebanese national agenda and to assert its place within Lebanese society. In this way the Lebanese borderland, a neglected region since the country’s creation in 1920, has become central in defining Lebanese national discourse.

The recent war between Israel and Hezbollah added another dimension to my analysis. UN Resolution 1701, which ended the hostilities, refers specifically to the Shebaa farms border conflict and ties its resolution with a future political arrangement between Lebanon and Israel. This Resolution, together with UN Resolutions 1680 and 1559 (passed respectively in May 2006 and September 2004), relate to Lebanon and its relations with its neighbors and are imbued with references to the shared boundaries of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. These political boundaries will be at the center of any future diplomatic arrangement. In order to have a lasting ceasefire, Israel and Lebanon must respect each other’s sovereignty. For this to happen, Hezbollah should be kept away from the Israeli-Lebanese border. The price of that could be an Israeli withdrawal from the Shebaa farms.

The Lebanese demand for sovereignty over this piece of territory does find some support in the historical record, even if the Lebanese state never bothered to exercise this sovereignty until Hezbollah made it the raison d’étre of its armed struggle against Israel. With the right political atmosphere and the assistance of the United Nations, such an exchange between Israel and Lebanon could take place, as it was already implied in Resolution 1701. In addition, this UN Resolution calls for the delineation of the international boundaries of Lebanon as part of a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution to this conflict. This long overdue demarcation could be the first step toward regulating Lebanon’s relations with its neighbors and could help stabilize a region that is otherwise plagued by instability.

Asher Kaufman joined the Kroc Institute faculty in August 2005. Prior to that, he taught at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, where he was a research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace.