As talks with Syria's new regime reportedly advance, it is crucial to include two key elements in any future peace agreement, alongside appropriate security arrangements and reaffirming Israel's permanent sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
The first element is compensation for the property of Syrian Jews, which was seized by authorities during the 20th century.
A century ago, Syria's Jewish community numbered around 50,000 people. It was one of the world's oldest Jewish communities, whose members were active in trade and various professions.
By the mid-20th century, particularly following World War II, Syrian Jews faced increasing persecution. They were subjected to restrictions, harassment, violence, and systematic efforts to push them out of the positions they had attained through hard work and talent. In many cases, their assets were confiscated. Often, Jews were forced to forfeit their property in exchange for permission to leave Syria or to save their lives.
Comprehensive research has estimated that the value of Syrian Jewish assets in 1947 stood at around $200 million - equivalent to roughly $11 billion today. Justice demands restitution, and Israel must insist on this. Funds that will likely flow into Syria as a result of peace, normalization with Israel, and the lifting of sanctions should be earmarked to compensate for stolen Jewish property. If not, there must be another path to historical justice between Syria and its Jews.
That path involves the second essential component: the lands legally purchased by Jews in southern Syria during the early days of the Zionist movement.
At the end of the 19th century, Jewish Europeans, organized in associations, legally acquired large tracts of farmland and even entire villages in the Hauran region south of Damascus. At the time, this area was no different from other parts of the land that would later become the State of Israel. The Zionist vision sought to redeem these lands, just as it did in Zikhron Yaakov or Rishon Lezion. Jewish pioneers lived in what is now Syria until World War I, toiling to cultivate the arid soil and bravely enduring disease and hostilities.
These Jewish-owned lands were also confiscated without trial, just like other Jewish property in Syria, and should likewise be restored. Given Syria's current condition, one possible mechanism for redress could be a fair and creative exchange: forfeiting monetary compensation for the stolen property in return for annexing to Israel the buffer zones in southern Syria already under Israel Defense Forces control, or at least parts of them.
Resolving the issue of Jewish property and lands in Syria is important now because it would set a crucial precedent for future normalization with other Muslim countries that also benefited from expropriating Jewish assets. There is no reason to forgive the looting and persecution of Jews from Arab countries. And if there is to be any concession, it must be mutual.
