Golan Heights
Netanyahu announced on 08 December 2024 that the "disengagement" agreement with Syria over the Golan Heights had collapsed, raising speculation about the purpose of the move in light of the current situation in Syria with the arrival of opposition forces in Damascus and the escape of the regime's president, Bashar al-Assad. Netanyahu announced in a speech the collapse of the 1974 buffer zone agreement with Syria, and ordered the army to "seize" the buffer zone where the United Nations force is deployed, southwest of Syria, following the fall of Assad.
The Israeli army announced the deployment of its forces in the area, noting in a statement that "in light of the events in Syria and based on an assessment of the situation and the possibility of armed men entering the buffer zone, the IDF deployed forces in the buffer zone and at several necessary defensive points."
In his speech, Netanyahu noted that the current situation "creates new and very important opportunities for the State of Israel. But it is also not without risks." He explained "We are working first and foremost to protect our borders. This area has been controlled for nearly 50 years through the buffer zone that was agreed upon in 1974, which is the Separation of Forces (Disengagement) Agreement," He continued: "This agreement collapsed and the Syrian soldiers abandoned their positions. In cooperation with the Minister of Defense, and with the full support of the cabinet, I instructed the Israeli army yesterday to take over the buffer zone and the command posts adjacent to it. We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border."
Some in Israel aspire to expand geographically in the Arab region according to the concept of the Promised Land and Greater Israel. This is supported in this by evangelical Christian Zionists who link the establishment of Greater Israel to the return of Christ. These goals can only be implemented by military force. By this logic, the Israeli state must continue expanding its borders until it reaches the divinely ordained boundaries that will force the advent of the Messiah. Ideological dimensions, regardless of their validity, remain a motivation for those who believe in them.
Israel considers the Golan Heights important to its national security, and says it needs to control the area to defend itself from threats from Syria and Iranian proxy groups there. The Golan is only 60 km (40 miles) from Damascus and provides Israel with a strong defensive-offensive position and vantage point to observe military movements across the border. On the other hand, Syrian control over the Golan would provide it with strategic heights overlooking Israel.
Israeli political analyst Eli Nissan said 08 December 2024 that Israel "returned and occupied Mount Hermon, which was under Syrian control, which means that Israel penetrated 14 kilometers into Syrian territory." He added: "There is a buffer zone that includes five Syrian villages, and the army spokesman asked their residents not to leave their homes until further notice, meaning that it will be a buffer zone to prevent the entry of foreign elements from armed factions to the Israeli border, and this is what the prime minister meant when he visited the border between Israel and Syria."
The Golan Agreement, it is based on a Security Council resolution that is binding on all members of the United Nations. Therefore, talk about the collapse of the agreement is a “flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter, Security Council resolutions, and the rules of international law.”
"The change of governments and political systems is not a legal basis for evading international resolutions and treaties. We are not dealing with just an agreement, but with a Security Council resolution, which is Resolution 350 issued on May 31, 1974. Therefore, for Israel, a member state of the United Nations, to violate Security Council resolutions that are binding on all members, not just Israel and Syria, is a serious violation of international law and a disregard for Security Council resolutions in this regard," he added.
According to special sources for the "Sham" network, the control of the Israeli forces was not limited to Mount Hermon only, but rather by 09 December 2024 they took control of the entire Quneitra Governorate and Tal al-Hara in Daraa Governorate and are continuing to advance to other parts of Daraa until now, while continuing to launch air strikes since yesterday without stopping, with the formation of very dense smoke clouds in a number of targeted areas. The history of Zionist ambitions in the Golan goes back to the early 20th century, and this was expressed in the memorandum submitted by the "Zionist Organization" to the Peace Conference in 1919, which stated that "Mount Hermon is the true father of waters for Palestine." As stated in the letter of the then leader of the Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann , at the San Remo Conference, the organization would not accept the Sykes-Picot line as a basis for negotiation, because it “deprives the Jewish national home of some of the best settlement fields in the Golan.”
To ensure control over the water sources in the occupied Golan, a military order in 1967 stated that no person may carry out or cause to be carried out water works except under a license issued by an Israeli official. Since 1978, the occupation has implemented, through the Mei Golan Company, more than 21 water reservoirs throughout the Golan, as well as a group of small dams.
The occupation, through Mekorot Company, also dug more than 40 artesian wells in 17 locations, 5 of which are located in the middle of farmers’ lands in the five villages. It also seized the waters of the natural Lake Ram, which is located in the middle of lands owned by residents of the Golan villages, and has a capacity of 6.5 million cubic meters, pumping water to the settlements.
The town of Majdal Shams was the largest population center for the Druze of the Golan Heights, with a population of 12,000. They held out on their land after the Israeli occupation in 1967, which was accompanied by widespread displacement, systematic oppression, and policies of assimilation and erasure of identity. The residents initially confronted the occupation with armed resistance, then they began to adopt civil resistance that continues to this day, represented by rejecting Israeli citizenship, boycotting local elections, and resisting land grabbing and natural resource domination projects. They were also keen to strengthen economic and social ties with Syria.
The total area of the Golan is estimated at 1,860 square kilometers, and constitutes 1% of the total area of Syria. Israel occupied about 1,250 square kilometers of it in the June 1967 war, of which Syria regained 100 square kilometers after the October 1973 war. Israel currently occupies about 1,176 square kilometers of the Golan Heights, including 100 square kilometers of the area that was demilitarized according to the 1949 Armistice Agreement.
The Golan is home to about 20,000 Druze and about 25,000 Israelis spread across more than 30 settlements. Israel occupied most of the Golan Heights during the 1967 war and later annexed it in a move not recognized by the majority of the international community. Administratively, the Golan is one of 13 governorates in Syria, and its center is the city of Quneitra.
Donald Trump said 21 March 2019 the United States was recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the Syrian territory it captured in 1967's Six-Day War and has controlled since then. Trump, in a Twitter comment, said the Golan Heights "After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!"
This was a violation of international law and of UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) which spoke of “emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”. Following the war, the issue of the return of Israel-occupied territories received most attention. U.S. President Johnson spoke out against any permanent change in the legal and political status of the Israeli-occupied territories and emphasized that Arab land should be returned only as part of an overall peace settlement that recognized Israel's right to exist. The principle of land for peace was embodied in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 adopted in November 1967. Resolution 242 called for the Israeli withdrawal from the territories it had occupied following the 1967 war in exchange for peace with its neighbors. The land for peace formula served as the basis for future Middle East negotiations.
The idea that military conquest transfers rights to ownership – that whoever wins last war has the legitimate right to territory – especially in the Middle East, is a dangerous proposition. Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said a basic principle of the post-World War II international system was the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.
"That's gone. Also gone would be the binding nature of UN Security Council resolutions, including ones drafted by and voted for by the United States in the past," he said. "The biggest danger is global and long-term. By recognizing and legitimating Israel's annexation of Golan, Washington is virtually inviting other international predators to seize what they want. Then, by this logic, all they need to do is hold onto that territory for long enough to call it 'reality' and demand that other countries 'recognize reality' by legitimating their land grab," he said.
Israel's de facto annexation of the Golan Heights on 14 December 1981 culminated a steady tightening of control over the region it had captured from Syria in 1967. Well before the annexation, most of the Syrians who had not fled during the fighting had been expelled, many Syrian villages had been razed, the Israeli curriculum was being taught even in the few remaining Arab schools, and dozens of Jewish settlements had been established and transferred from military to civilian control.
In 1973 Syrian forces attacked Israel and temporarily reoccupied about half of the Golan Heights before they were repulsed, and agreed to a new cease-fire line and buffer zone. The 1973 Middle East war proved to be only a temporary interruption in the gradual "Israelization" of the Golan Heights. More than 100,000 Syrian Arabs fled or were expelled from the area during and after the 1967 fighting. An Israeli census taken soon after the war counted only 6,400 Syrian nationals on the Golan, most of them Druze farmers living in a few villages in the north. Since then the Arab population of these villages had grown to about 14,000.
Meanwhile, the Syrian imprint on the remainder of the Golan has been all but destroyed. Since 1967 some 6,000 Israelis have settled 31 new Golan communities, including Katzrin, the administrative and commercial center where the Israelis planned to house 20,000 citizens. Agriculture-grain, vegetables, fruit, and livestock-is the predominant activity. Although the Israeli settlements on the Golan increased steadily in size and number, progress was slower than planned, owing to a shortage of funds and a dearth of willing settlers. They nonetheless exist as "facts" created by Israel to strengthen its hold on the occupied Golan.
According to the terms of the disengagement agreement signed in 1974, Israeli and Syrian military forces are separated by a buffer zone at the eastern margin of the Golan Heights, which is manned by the UN Disengagement Observer Force [UNDOF]. Each country may maintain only limited forces and weaponry within specified distances of the buffer zone. Although force and weapon levels have varied considerably, both sides have generally adhered to the terms of the agreement with neither side normally maintaining as large a military presence as the agreement permits.
The Golan Heights has long held a special security significance in Israel's view. Israeli political leaders and the general public remember well the period before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war when Syrian artillery on the Golan sporadically shelled Israeli farms and civilian communities in the disputed demilitarized zones in the Hula Valley. The scheduled final withdrawal from the Sinai next April, moreover, has generated new anxiety about increased vulnerability to the perceived Arab threat. This concern - plus longstanding suspicions of Syrian intentions - further reinforced the Israelis' attachment to the Golan. Indeed, Knesset passage on 14 December 1981 of Prime Minister Begin's bill effectively annexing the Golan Heights culminates a steady tightening of Israeli control over the territory.
In 1979 the Israelis established a Golan regional council controlled by the Interior Ministry. A year later, the Knesset authorized the Interior Ministry to confer Israeli citizenship on amenable Golan Druze. Most major Israeli parties, moreover, had long sponsored settlements in the territory - a connection that assured the settlers a formidable lobby within the government and Knesset. Public opinion polls showed consistently that an overwhelming majority favored eventual annexation. The timing and tactics used in passing the 1981 bill sparked ineffective criticism by the opposition, which staged an unsuccessful no-confidence vote shortly after the 14 December annexation move.
Control of the Golan Heights gave the Israelis a buffer zone beyond its borders within which to contain a possible Syrian invasion. From their positions on the lower slopes of Mount Hermon, which dominates the local landscape, the Israelis can monitor not only the movements of Syrian units near the Golan but those of Palestinian guerrillas in southern Lebanon as well. Control of the northern Golan, moreover, ensures Israeli control over the headwaters of the Baniyas River, a tributary of the upper Jordan River.
Israel officially named the region it occupied the Golan Heights. The name Golan is derived from the name of a city of refuge in Bashan, as the region was known in Biblical times. Sometimes, the Israelis still refer to the region as Bashan. The Golan Heights remained relatively quiet between 1967 and October 1973. In part this was due to the Israeli policy of not allowing the return of the approximately home to 100,000 refugees who had fled or were expelled during and after the 1967 fighting. Beginning in 1968, the Israelis began establishing farm communities on the Golan; this violation of international law drew widespread international criticism and enraged the Syrians. Some of the new settlements were within 3 kilometers of the 1967 cease-fire line and in sight of Syrian Army positions.
In effect, the Israelis had merely moved many contentious aspects of the Demilitarized Zone situation about 25 kilometers to the east. and Israelis had established defensive positions on the The Golan Heights and in the Galilee Hills from which flat trajectory fire could be delivered to the zones on the valley floor.
Although water resources on the Golan Heights were generally adequate for the area's Syrian population before June 1967, the Israelis are developing an expanded water distribution system designed to support irrigated agriculture. When completed, the new system will supply a total of 28 million cubic meters of water annually. Because this amount is not available on the Golan Heights, water is drawn from two taps in Lake Tiberias and pumped up some 600 meters through three 16-inch pipes to a system of water towers and tanks located at settlements and military facilities in the southern Golan. Birkat Ram, a natural lake in the northern Golan, has also been tapped to supply water to the settlement blocs west and north of Al Qunaytirah and to some of the Druze villages.
Israeli agriculture is more intensive than that practiced earlier by the Syrians. Irrigation is widespread, even on some of the large wheat fields, and is expected to expand as new land is brought under cultivation. Data on total agricultural production from the Golan is not available to allow comparisons with former Syrian output or to determine the area's contribution to Israel's total crop and livestock production. In any event, the production is of little consequence to the national economy.
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