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The region remained under Israel i control after the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon. It is administered as a part of the Golan Heights . The United Nations regards the Shebaa Farms part of SyriaReport of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 425 (1978) and 426 (1978), May 22, 2000.. But the Lebanese government considers it part of Lebanon, as do Syrian authorities (in contradiction of the 1949 Armistice Agreements ). As of yet however, Syria has refused to cooperate with Lebanon's and the UN's request to have the border in the Shebaa area officially demarcated as belonging to Lebanon. Israel considers it part of the Golan Heights . Israel took control of Shebaa Farms during the ) On , 2005 UN Secretary-General's report on Lebanon explicitly stated: "The continually asserted position of the Government of Lebanon that the Blue Line is not valid in the Shab'a farms area is not compatible with Security Council resolutions. The Council has recognized the Blue Line as valid for purposes of confirming Israel’s withdrawal pursuant to resolution 425 (1978). The Government of Lebanon should heed the Council’s repeated calls for the parties to respect the Blue Line in its entirety." {Link without Title} LEBANON'S RESERVATIONS Lebanon and Syria regard this UN certification of the withdrawal as invalid because of Lebanon's claim to the Shebaa Farms. However, Lebanese and Syrian officials insisted that Syria had officially granted the area of Shebaa Farms to Lebanon in 1951. Lebanese officials point to land deeds, stamped by the Lebanese government, held by a number of residents in the area. Syria now officially claims that the farms are Lebanese. Lebanese army maps published in 1961 and 1966 specifically show several of the Shebaa Farms (including Zebdine, Fashkoul, Mougr Shebaa and Ramta) as being on the Syrian side of the border. Lebanese Ministry of Tourism maps also show the Lebanese-Syrian border running west of the Shebaa Farms, which would place Shebaa Farms to the east of the border and therefore within Syria. (See map in body of article ) Nonetheless, the United Nations states: :"On 15 May 2000, the United Nations received a map, dated 1966, from the Government of Lebanon which reflected the Government's position that these farmlands were located in Lebanon. However, the United Nations is in possession of 10 other maps issued after 1966 by various Lebanese government institutions, including the Ministry of Defense and the army, all of which place the farmlands inside the Syrian Arab Republic. The United Nations has also examined six maps issued by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, including three maps since 1966, which place the farmlands inside the Syrian Arab Republic." UN Document S/2000/460 ORIGINS The dispute over the sovereignty of the Shebaa Farms originated with the failure of the French Mandate administrations to properly demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria. Documents from the 1920s and 1930s show that the local inhabitants regarded themselves part of Lebanon, for example paying taxes to the Lebanese government, but that French officials often expressed confusion on the question of where the border lay. A French official in 1939 expressed the belief that the uncertainty was sure to cause trouble in the future. When detailed maps of the border region were finally prepared by the French and British military administration during WWII, they showed the region in Syria, but the commission responsible for demarcating the border did not act decisively on the dispute before the French mandate ended in 1946. When the newly formed Lebanese and Syrian governments asked the French government for official information on their common border, it was revealed that almost nothing existed. Border disputes arose frequently, leading to the formation of a joint Lebanese-Syrian border demarcation commission. That commission decided in 1964 to include the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon, but apparently no official demarcation of the border actually occurred and the older maps showing the Shebaa Farms in Syria continued to be used. The local residents continued to regard themselves as Lebanese and the Lebanese government agreed but showed little interest. However, the Syrian government imposed itself on the region, at one point forcibly replacing the villagers' Lebanese identity cards with Syrian ones. On the eve of the 1967 war, the region was under effective Syrian control. The disputed territory was not apparently mentioned by the Lebanese government after the 1967 Six Day War or the 1973 October War as an occupation issue and appears to have arisen only as a result of the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. The claim on this area provides a purported rationale for Hezbollah 's continuing hostilities towards Israel . Since the controversy over the border surfaced in 2000 after the UN had certified Israel's withrawal from Lebanon as full and complete and especially after Syria's withrawal from Lebanon, various members of the international diplomatic community have repeatedly requested that Syria and Lebanon take steps to determine the exact boundary between them in the Shebaa Farms region, followed by officially registering the demarcated border with the United Nations. However, no action on this matter by the two countries has taken place. EXTERNAL LINKS
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