Israel
- Golan Heights
The Golan Heights,
known to Syria as the Syrian Heights, are a plateau on the border of
Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. After capturing the area during the
Six-Day War, Israel applied its "laws, jurisdiction and administration"
to it in 1981 [1]. Syria claims the heights as part of the governorate
of Al Qunaytirah, and the international community considers the area to
be under Israeli military occupation, although this is disputed by
Israel. (See Current Status below).
Geographically, the Heights are bordered on the west by a rock
escarpment that drops 1700 feet (500 m) to the Sea of Galilee and the
Jordan River; on the south by the Yarmouk River; on the north by the
international border with Lebanon, and on the east by a largely flat
plain, called the Hauran. The Golan is usually divided into three
regions: northern (between Nahals Sa'ar and Gilabon), central (between
Nahals Gilabon and Dilayot), and southern (between Nahal Dilayot and the
Yarmouk Valley).
Geologically, the Golan Heights are a plateau, and part of a Holocene
volcanic field that extends northeast almost to Damascus. The entire
area is scattered with inactive cinder cones such as Majdel Shams. Mount
Hermon is in the northern Golan Heights but is geologically separate
from the volcanic field. Near Hermon is a crater lake called Birkat Ram
("Ram Pool") which is fed by underground springs.
Current status
The Israeli army captured the heights and put it under military
administration from 1967 until 1981, when the Knesset passed The Golan
Heights Law[2], similar to its 1967 measures concerning Jerusalem. It
permitted the imposition of Israeli identity cards in January 1982 on
the mainly Druze Syrians who remained there and allowed them to acquire
Israeli citizenship, but most objected strongly to the changes and
retained their Syrian citizenship instead.[3] This measure is frequently
termed an "annexation" but this is very far from clear - the word or
equivalent concepts, like "extending sovereignty" are not used in the
law itself.
When Prime Minister Menachem Begin was asked in the Knesset why he was
risking international criticism for this annexation, he replied "You use
the word annexation, but I am not using it." [4] The quasigovernmental
Jewish Agency for Israel states that "Although reported as a annexation,
it is not: the Golan Heights are not declared to be Israeli
territory."[5] On the other hand, the Netanyahu government's Basic
Policy Guidelines stated "The government views the Golan Heights as
essential to the security of the state and its water resources.
Retaining Israel's sovereignty over the Golan will be the basis for an
arrangement with Syria."[6] Neither the UN nor any country has
recognised the "annexation" and they officially consider the Heights to
be Syrian territory under Israeli military occupation. This view was
expressed in the unanimous resolution 497 stating that "the Israeli
decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the
occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international
legal effect." It, like other relevant UN resolutions takes care to not
explicitly call it an "annexation", referring at most to Israel's
"annexationist policies."
Additionally, Lebanon claims a small portion of the area known as Shebaa
Farms on Mount Dov in the area of Mount Hermon. Syria's official
position is that the farms are Lebanese territory. UN Security Council
Resolution 425 confirmed ([7]) that as of June 16, 2000, Israel had
completely withdrawn its forces from Lebanon, therefore indirectly
designating the farms as part of the Golan, and therefore part of Syria.
UNDOF (the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force) was established
in 1974 to supervise the implementation of the agreement and maintain
the ceasefire with an area of separation. Currently there are more than
1000 U.N peacekeepers there trying to sustain a lasting peace. Syria and
Israel still contest the ownership of the Heights but have not used
overt military force since 1974. The great strategic value of the
Heights both militarily and as a source of water means that a deal is
uncertain.
Members of the UN Disengagement force are usually the only individuals
who cross the Israeli-Syrian border, but in 2005, Syria allowed a few
trucks of Druze-grown Golan apples to be imported. The trucks themselves
were driven by Kenyan nationals. Since 1967, brides have been allowed to
cross the Golan border, but they do so in the knowledge that the journey
is a one-way trip. This phenomenon is shown in the Israeli-Arab film
"the Syrian Bride."
Some Jews and Zionist organizations consider the Golan Heights to be
liberated Jewish land; this view has very little support
internationally. No other country has accepted the legality of the
Israeli communities in the Golan Heights.
Ancient history
The area has been contested for thousands of years. During the 3rd
millennium BCE the Amorites dominated and inhabited the Golan until the
2nd millennium, when the Arameans took over. Later known as Bashan, the
area was contested between Kingdom of Israel (the northern of the two
Jewish kingdoms existent at that time) and the Aramean kingdom from the
800s BCE. King Ahab of Israel (reigned 874–852 BCE) defeated Ben-Hadad I
in the southern Golan.
In the 700s BCE the Assyrians gained control of the area, but were later
replaced by the Babylonian and the Persian Empire. In the 5th century
BCE, the region was settled by returning Jewish exiles from Babylonian
Captivity (modern Iraq).
In the 4th century BCE, the area came under the control of Alexander the
Great and remained under Hellenistic rule until captured by the Romans.
In the mid 2nd century BCE, Judah Maccabee aided the local Jewish
communities when they came under attack, although the area itself was
not in Jewish hands.
The area was named Golan following the Roman occupation—the Greeks
referred to the area as "Gaulanitis", the term used by the Romans, which
led to the word "Golan". The Nabataeans gained control of the area in 85
BCE. During the First Revolt (66-73 CE) against Rome by the Jews of
Judea, a number of Jews captured a hilltop at Gamla, which later fell;
the hilltop is today called the "Masada of the Golan". In about 250 CE,
the Ghassanids immigrated to the modern-day Golan and built their
capital at Jabiyah. After the partitioning of the Roman Empire in 391
CE, the Golan Heights fell under the sphere of the Byzantine Empire,
under the rule of their vassals, the Ghassanids. The area came under a
short-lived Sassanid occupation that started in 614 and ended in
approximately 628. In 636, the area was conquered by Muslim Arabs under
the Caliph Umar I. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Druze began to settle
the northern Golan and the slopes of Mount Hermon. In the 16th century,
the Ottoman Turks came in control of the area and remained so until the
end of World War I.
In the 1880s, a Jewish community called Ramataniya was founded by early
Zionists; it failed within a year.
History since World War I
The boundary between the forthcoming British and French mandates was
defined in broad terms by the Franco-British Boundary Agreement of
December 1920. This placed most of the Golan in the French sphere.
However, the joint commission formed to demarcate the border precisely
did not complete its work until 1923, so the actual transfer of the
Golan to French control did not occur until the year after the British
Mandate of Palestine came into being. In accordance with the same
process, a nearby parcel of land that included the ancient site of Dan
was transferred from Syria to Palestine early in 1924. The Golan Heights
thus became part of the French Mandate of Syria and, when that mandate
ended in 1944, part of Syria. Syria retained control of the Golan
Heights for 23 years from 1944 to 1967.
After the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War, the Syrians fortified on the
Heights, from which they shelled civilian targets in Israel and launched
other attacks for the next 18 years. 140 Israelis were killed and many
more were injured in these attacks from 1949 to 1967. The Mixed
Armistice Commission (which oversaw the implementation of the
Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement) reported violations of the agreement
by both sides.
After the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War, the Golan Heights were partly
demilitarized by the Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement. Over the
following years the Mixed Armistice Commission reported many violations
by each side.
During the Six-Day War (1967), the IDF captured the Golan Heights on
9-10 June. The area which came under Israeli control as a result of the
war is two geologically distinct areas: the Golan Heights proper (1,070
km²) and the slopes of the Mt. Hermon range (100 km²).
Before the Six-Day War the strategic heights of the Golan, which are
approximately 3000 ft (1000 m) above pre-1967 Israel, were used to
frequently bombard civilian Israeli farming communities far below them,
although Moshe Dayan (Israeli Defense Minister during the 1967 war)
would later state that it was most often the result of Israeli
provocations in the demilitarized zone.
About 90% of the Golan's inhabitants, mainly Druze and Circassians, fled
during the Six-Day War. For various political reasons, they have not
been allowed to return. This has led to the splitting of many families.
Israel began settling the Golan almost immediately following the war.
Kibbutz Merom Golan was founded in July 1967. By 1970 there were 12
Jewish communities on the Golan and by 2004 there were 34 settlements
holding around 18,000 people.
During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Syrian forces overran much of the
southern Golan, before being pushed back by an Israeli counterattack.
Israel and Syria signed a ceasefire agreement in 1974 that left the
Heights in Israeli hands with a demilitarized zone in Syrian civil, but
not military control.
Syria has always demanded a full Israeli withdrawal from all of the
Golan Heights, to the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee (the 1949
armistice line). Successive Israeli governments have expressed support
for some Israeli withdrawal from the Golan without specifying the extent
of this withdrawal. In return for this withdrawal, Israel demands that
the area of the Golan falling under Syrian control become demilitarized
and that other security measures are implemented to prevent a potential
surprise Syrian attack. (Note, since 1967 the Sea of Galilee has shrunk
somewhat. In the 2000 peace talks, Syria accepted that its new border
would not actually touch the lake.)
Israel has always insisted that any agreement with Syria must include
fully normalized diplomatic and economic relations. Prior to the 2000
negotiations, Hafez al-Assad did not offer travel and trade rights to
Israelis, but in the 2000 negotiations he did agree to a peace deal of
the same nature that Egypt and Jordan made.
Regarding the Golan Heights, Yitzhak Rabin stated:
Words are not enough about the Golan Heights. We must put them into
actions... Withdrawal from the Golan is unthinkable, even in times of
peace. Anyone considering withdrawal from the Golan Heights would be
abandoning Israel’s security. Let us invest, all of us together, in
order to fulfil our obligations to the Golan Heights. And to you
residents — those who made the Golan Heights what it is — you have all
my respect.
When interviewed about an upcoming conference on American TV network ABC
on September 16, 1991, Syrian president Hafez al-Assad said:
The efforts currently exerted are based on the Security Council
Resolutions N° 242 and N° 338 on the basis of realizing a comprehensive
peace in the region. The Golan, as an occupied Syrian territory, shall
be reinstated, within the framework of such comprehensive peace, to its
natural status as part of Syrian territory. Upon implementing the
comprehensive solution for the two Arab and Israeli sides, comprehensive
peace will prevail and documents will be achieve peace process. This as
you know will be decided within the Conference, the Israeli side on the
one hand and the Arab side on the other.
Also regarding the Heights, when asked about military conflict in the
area, Moshe Dayan stated :
It would happen like this: We would send a tractor to plow someplace of
no value, in the demilitarized zone, knowing ahead of time that the
Syrians would begin to shoot. If they did not start shooting, we would
tell the tractor to keep going forward, until the Syrians in the end
would get nervous and start shooting. And then we would start firing
artillery, and later also the airforce, and this was the way it was. I
did this, and Laskov and Tzur [two previous commanders-in-chief] did it.
Yitzhak Rabin did it when he was there , but it seems to me that it was
Dado, more than anyone else, who enjoyed these games.
However, Dayan also noted regarding the Israeli farmers who lived at the
base of the Heights:
They suffered a lot because of the Syrians. Look, as I said before, they
lived in the kibbutzim, they farmed, raised children, lived and wanted
to live there. The Syrians opposite them were soldiers who shot at them
and they certainly did not like this. But I can tell you in absolute
certainly: the delegation that came to convince Eshkol to attack the
Heights did not think about these things. It thought about the land on
the Heights. Listen, I am also a farmer. I'm from Nahalal, not from Tel
Aviv, and I recognize this. I saw them, and I talked to them. They did
not even try to hide their greed for that soil. That's what guided them.
During US-brokered negotiations 1999-2000, Israel offered to return most
of the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace and full
recognition. Syria refused. Syria offered full recognition and peace in
exchange for a complete return to the pre-1967 borders. Israel refused.
In late 2003, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he was ready to
revive peace talks with Israel. Israel demanded Syria first disarm
Hizbullah, who launched many attacks on northern Israeli towns and army
posts from Syrian and Lebanese territory. Peace talks were not
initiated. The population of the Golan is now half Druze and half
Jewish.
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights
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