A recent French news agency dispatch from Israel, describing reported Syrian troop movements near the Golan Heights, was headlined "Israel gripped by Syria war fears."

But on the plateau itself, tranquility reigns. If there is fear here, among some of the Israeli and Druze residents, it is that a future peace deal could return the Golan to Syria.

For forty years United Nations peacekeeping troops have formed a buffer between the Israeli army and the Syrians.

Occupying a narrow zone, they enforce the 1974 agreement that followed the Yom Kippur War. It has been the quietest border Israel has known in that period.

Captain Stefan Zaiser of the peacekeeping force notes that of the 56 casualties sustained by the force since 1967, the vast majority have been suicides or accidents. The closest they have come to warfare was during the summer Lebanon War, when a number of Katyusha rockets aimed at an Israeli listening stations overshot targets and struck in the vicinity of their main base.

Touring the Golan Heights, tanks can be seen on exercises alongside the cattle grazing on the high plains. Since the Israeli capture of the heights in 1967 and the departure of most of the Syrian Arabs, the heights have become a premier cattle-raising and winegrowing region.

On a misty day, the low stone walls - some of which are the remnants of former Syrian villages - amid the short rippling grasses, recall the mood and beauty of the North York Moors. But the sight of tanks rolling among the sheep brings the reality back into sharp focus.

The population of 40,000 is roughly split into two. Half are Israeli Jews, and half are Druze Arabs, remnants of the Syrian population left behind in 1967.

The Druze live in four villages in the north of the 70 kilometer-long plateau. Although many of the Druze hold periodic demonstrations of loyalty to Syria and protest against the Israeli presence, a few of the Druze - around a thousand - have taken up the offer of Israeli citizenship that has been open to them since Israel's annexation of the territory in 1981. However, the vast majority have not done so.

One Druze who took up citizenship is Samir Da'abus. A former member of the Likud Cenral Commitee and ex-mayor of the Golan's largest Druze village, he is fearful for the future.

Da'abus is now in early retirement - alienated by what he described as a lack of "respect" in politics. What would he do if Israel returned the Golan to Syria?

"I would take my family to Canada, but most of the Druze here would stay put." With Syrians viewing him as a collaborator with Israel, he says that he would be foolish to stay. But even those who intend to stay are - in Da'abus' estimation - highly apprehensive.

The Syrian regime has in the past dealt harshly with dissidents. Twenty-five years ago last month, Hafez Assad, father and predecessor of current Syrian President Bashar Assad, quelled a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, Syria, killing as many as 25,000 people.

A picture of former prime minister Ariel Sharon hangs in the Druze restaurant which Samir Da'abus frequents; clearly Da'abus is not alone in his revisionist Zionist tendencies.

While the Druze are relatively prosperous and mostly speak fluent Heberw, they remain isolated - both from Israel and from their family and society in Syria.

Da'abus, too, is isolated. A large section of his community shuns him, for fear of being seen as collaborators by the regime that they once knew and may again reside under.

In view of the risks he has taken in working with Israel, the nation has failed to give moderates like him sufficient advantages to make the risks worthwhile, Da'abus believes.

There is little tension between the settlers and the Druze, but some of the Jews have fears as well. They are quietly apprehensive that a peace deal could see them evacuated from the homes they have known for 30 years.

At the same time, Jews on the heights believe that Syria's stringent demands for territorial concessions, along with tough Israeli pro-Golan laws enacted over the years - annexing the Golan to Israel and requiring a Knesset majority and a national referendum to give it back to Damascus - will, make any effort to cede the heights exceedingly difficult.

"The Syrians have rejected the return of the Golan on numerous occasions. We can't live with that kind of uncertainty indefinitely," says Ramona Bar-Lev, the first lady of Katzrin - the Golan's largest "city" (with a mere 4,500 residents, this is something of a stretch).

She lived in the ruins of the Syrian town of Quneitra following the '67 war and has lived on the heights ever since. An imperious and elegant woman, a persona more befitting a mayor than the political spouse that she is, she argues for Israel's grip on the Golan to be strengthened and made permanent.

"We believe the Golan should stay Israel's for ever because we have been here for 40 years and what we have accomplished here in that time, I would humbly say, is amazing," Bar Lev says.

There are, however, Israeli Jews on the heights who welcome the prospect of a peace treaty with Syria, even as they acknowledge the likelihood that they will be uprooted along with their family and neighbors.

One of them is Gary Black, a former peace-activist from Manchester, England, who has built a home and raised a family on the edge of the Golan, yet favors an eventual land-for-peace deal.

"I am certainly unusual in this regard," Black concedes, "but it seems inevitable in the long run."

"My heart is here. But my head says if we want to achieve peace not only with Syria but the rest of the Arab world that will entail withdrawing from the Golan Heights. How it will work and how long it will take I don't know. But I don't see any alternative to some sort of withdrawal from the Golan," said Black.

He concedes that his own children - who have known no other home - would disagree with his position.

Would settlers fight their removal from the Golan? "Most would not, but don't forget that the Jewish Underground movements have their roots in the Golan rather than in the West Bank or Gaza," noted Black.

At this juncture, in the absence of peace talks and Washington's pressure on Israel to refrain from contacts with the Assad regime, any return of the Golan appears an unlikely prospect indeed. A recent Haaretz poll found that while a majority of Israelis supported talks with Syria, 54% were against the return of the Golan under any circumstances.