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O 241521Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5630
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L TEL AVIV 000438 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/24/2020 
TAGS: PREL LE IS
SUBJECT: GOI STILL WORKING OUT DETAILS FOR GHAJAR 
WITHDRAWAL 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Marc Sievers, Reason 1.4 (b) (d) 
 
¶1. (C) According to Gilad Cohen,  Advisor to MFA Director 
General Yossi Gal, Israel remains committed to withdrawing 
from Ghajar, but noted that the more the interagency team 
gets into the details of withdrawal, the more complicated the 
issue becomes.  Embassy PolOff and PolOff from the Office of 
the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace (SEMEP) met Cohen on 
February 18.  Cohen said that Ghajar was increasingly a 
bureaucratic mess.  He noted that the higher profile the 
issue becomes, the more they must focus on the details to 
ensure they are covered.  (Note:  Ghajar's residents are 
Syrian Alawites but most of them were granted Israeli 
citizenship in the 1970s.)  "Once the lawyers got involved," 
he said, issues that had been fuzzy from 2000-2006, and are 
even fuzzy under the current system, began to be scrutinized 
"perhaps too closely" in order to prepare for potential 
post-withdrawal legal challenges by Ghajar residents 
remaining north of the Blue Line.  Cohen said that under the 
current system the Israeli telephone company is not always 
willing to send a technician to service homes in northern 
Ghajar, or will insist on sending Israeli Arab or local Druze 
technicians when they are available, but this cannot continue 
if there is a fomralized plan.  MFA and other Israeli 
government lawyers are insisting that these issues be 
hammered out in detail with the appropriate Israeli 
ministries, utilities and other service providers, as well as 
with UNIFIL and the residents, before the IDF can depart. 
 
¶2.  (C) The MFA and IDF were working to improve communication 
with Ghajar residents in order to correct misunderstandings, 
Cohen explained, including many false rumors that have 
received press play, especially via village spokesman Najib 
Khatib.  Many residents fear that withdrawal will result in 
the physical division of the village, splitting families 
across the Blue Line.  However, the UNIFIL plan speaks of no 
physical barrier, and indeed both the Israeli government and 
UNIFIL are clear that villagers' movement across the Blue 
Line will continue unimpeded.  Israel also plans on looking 
at easing the access regime as another incentive once the new 
system is in place.  Currently, all residents of Ghajar, 
north and south, must pass through a tightly controlled IDF 
checkpoint to enter and exit the village (Note: There is no 
access from the village into Lebanon proper.).  This is 
especially difficult for Ghajar residents who hold jobs in 
other parts of the Golan or Israel proper. 
 
¶3.  (C) Cohen noted that General Asarta, the new UNIFIL 
commander, would meet Director General Gal in Jerusalem on 
February 23 to continue Ghajar talks.  General Graziano had 
conducted three rounds of talks with Gal prior to Graziano's 
departure on January 28; this will be Asarta's first meeting 
with Gal.  Cohen had no sense of how many additional rounds 
would be required.  PolOffs reiterated US support for a 
speedy resolution of the details, urged continued 
communication with the villagers, and emphasized that 
resolution of the Ghajar issue within the context of UNSCR 
1701 will make it easier to press Lebanon on its outstanding 
1701 commitments. 
 
¶4.  (C) Israel is serious about resolving Ghajar, Cohen 
emphasized, but as the issue gains additional political 
attention, the Israeli government is forced to examine the 
issue in greater detail in anticipation of possible legal 
challenges.  In addition, he said, Israel will not compromise 
on its demand that any future change in the security or 
political status of northern Ghajar, including the timing of 
a handover of responsibility from UNIFIL to the Lebanese 
Armed Forces, can only occur with Israel's consent.  Finally, 
Cohen worried that once Ghajar was resolved, UNIFIL, Lebanon, 
and the international community would renew their calls for 
unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Sheba'a.  PolOffs 
underlined that the two issues were absolutely distinct in 
U.S. thinking, that any deal on Sheba'a absent 
Syrian-Lebanese border delineation would require significant 
Lebanese steps, and that this position had been made clear in 
Beirut. 
 
¶5.  (U) SEMEP cleared this cable. 
Cunningham