It’s strange. There was a time when the Golan was almost completely in the national consensus. Except for the extreme left, and their short-sighted political adventurist/opportunist, no one questioned our right or need for the Golan or the Hermon mountain.

Yet, here we are, with Olmert, Peres and their followers both publicly and anonymously announcing on a near daily basis that we must be rid of the Golan if we want to prop up a third world repressive regime (I mean Syria, not Israel), and the idea, quite scarily, is gaining momentum.

I don’t think it has to do with the Jewish artifacts, archeology, and history that is being uncovered all the time on the Golan. Though God forbid we should find more links to our past.

It couldn’t be because the percentage of Religious Jews (compared to non-religious Jews) living on the Golan might be higher than that of even Judea and Samaria.

To be honest, I don’t know why.

But Ha’aretz is reporting on a new hiking trail that was just inaugurated for the Golan.

So you are probably saying to yourself, see JoeSettler is wrong. Israel does want the Golan.

Except you would be wrong.

You see this trail was developed by the Golan Tourism Association in response to the not so subtle snub they got from Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.

You see, the SPNI has an important and defining hiking trail that traverses Israel called “Shvil Yisrael” or the “Israel Trail. If you go to the map though you’ll notice that it is rather selective as to where it goes.

Obviously it would never go into Judea or Samaria, but there was a conscious decision to not include the Golan as part of the “Israel Trail” for political reasons!

So while the SPNI helped develop and mark the Golan Trail, it is done as a completely separate track.

While the SPNI has the right to define their trails however they want, and while they obviously do have trails in the Golan, and along the Jordan River, you have to admit that purposely not including the Golan as part of the Israel Trail is about as political a statement as you can make.