Shebaa Farms - Research Findings

Research Findings

In 2002, Asher Kaufman of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discovered previously unknown documents in French government archives. In one, French litigants in a private dispute entered into a private commercial agreement that suggested that the border should put the Farms in Lebanon. Two other documents, from 1937 and 1939, were reports from the administrative councilor of south Lebanon and the head of the Services Speciaux in the Syrian town of Quneitra. They noted a discrepancy between the border, as determined by the 1:200,000 Ottoman map, and their view of the "reality" in the region. Collecting "unofficial information" from "various sources," they concluded that in their view the area was Lebanese. Their conclusion was based on the facts that: a) some area residents paid taxes to Lebanon; and b) three or four sheep pens in the Farms belonged to residents of the Lebanese village of Shaba. After Kaufman published his findings, an editorial in the Daily Star of Lebanon chided the Lebanese academic community, indicating that it was embarrassing that the discovery had been left to an Israeli researcher.

In a book published in 1988, Moshe Braver, an Israeli geographer, mentions two French maps published in 1932 and 1946, the former shows the farm area as being part of Lebanon while the latter shows the area as a Syrian territory.