ABSTRACT
While the task of replacing the negative peace by a positive one seemed almost impossible, the ability of the parties to maintain even this negative peace was becoming increasingly doubtful during 1950 and afterwards, notwithstanding the best efforts of UN truce supervisors and repeated admonitions from the Western powers. From their conversations with high-ranking Israelis, American officials suspected that Israeli toughness in pressing claims or in reacting to frontier violations was at least partly motivated by the political aim of forcing the Arabs to reconsider their refusal to negotiate peace. 14 When expressing regret over increasing tensions and advising Israeli restraint, British officials were often met with ingenuous remarks such as: 'incidents appear[ed] inevitable [in the] absence [of a] settlement'. 15 Indeed, Israel seems to have embarked on a systematic policy of 'insist[ing on the] scrupulous fulfilment [of the] armistice' in order to make the no-peace status quo as uncomfortable as possible for the other side.16 Several years later, some British officials continued to harbour suspicions that Israel was deliberately trying to prove that the UNTSO machinery was unworkable.l7
The practical results of this tough, legalistic approach were the expulsion of infiltrators, the cultivation of no-man's lands, and the occupation of a small piece of territory which less-than-skilful Jordanian negotiators had inadverten tly ceded to Israel during secret talks at Shuneh in 1949.18 The Israelis also began laying the ground for water-diversion and drainage projects in the Israel-Syria DMZ south of Lake Huleh. A few months later the Syrians raised their first objections, and the Israeli water-diversion project near the Bnot Yaacov bridge thereafter became the focus of serious contention between Israel, Syria and Jordan for years to come.19
