But Israelis as a whole have relegated the issue of the Golan Heights to the back burner. Instead, it arose only implicitly as the unspoken second half of Barak's promise to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon within a year. Israelis love the Golan, a beautiful area dotted with dairy farms, fruit groves, waterfalls and ravines. If it were given up, the Israelis would also lose their only ski slopes and one of their few fine wineries. But eager to see a withdrawal from what is seen as a futile conflict in Lebanon, where 25 to 30 Israeli soldiers die a year, many Israelis try not to think too hard about the consequences for the Golan.
Polls show most expect the territory to be given up.
Instead of blaming the government for not making a decision on withdrawing from Lebanon, people are blaming us just for being here. Unlike the settlers in the West Bank, the Golan settlers, who number about 18,000, tend to be kibbutznik types. Most are secular and center or left politically. A pioneering Zionist spirit drove the original settlers to transform barren land. In the last 10 years, they have been joined by thousands of Russian immigrants.