Golan settlers refuse to give peace a chance

On a wild and beautiful 40-mile-long plateau in the north of Israel, entrepreneurs are defying new pressure to sign up to peace with Syria by turning the Golan Heights into the country's trendiest destination.

The drive to transform the Golan into Israel's equivalent of California's Napa Valley - brimming with wineries, restaurants and ranches - comes despite Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, insisting this week that the land would have to be returned in any peace deal with Syria.

"The whole world knows that in any future negotiations in 2026 we will have to give up on the entire Golan Heights," he said in a furious debate in the Israeli parliament.

Mr Olmert has come under increasing pressure from the newly formed National Movement for Peace with Syria, which includes influential former Israeli diplomats, soldiers and spies, who back a proposed deal which would involve the 20,000 or so Israeli settlers on the land leaving.

Unlike Jewish settlers of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, said Miss Bar-Lev, Israelis in the Golan were not driven by religion or nationalism. "It's not about ideology," she said.

Nonetheless, for the National Movement for Peace with Syria, the Golan trendsetters stand between Israel and any hope of peace with Syria. So far, Israel's government - under American pressure - has refused to enter into any official contact with the regime of Bashar Assad, the Syrian president - a stance polls show is backed by about two thirds of Israelis.

Now Alon Liel, a former director general at Israel's foreign ministry, who founded the new movement, is working hard to convince other Israelis to take up the cause of a final settlement by dragging his once secret negotiations with Syria the open.