Golan Heights

Golan Heights, hilly area overlooking the upper Jordan River valley on the west. The area was part of extreme southwestern Syria until 1967, when it came under Israeli military occupation, and in December 1981 Israel unilaterally annexed the part of the Golan it held. The area’s name is from the biblical city of refuge Golan in Bashan (Deuteronomy 4:43; Joshua 20:8).

Geography

Geographically, the Golan is bounded by the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee on the west, Mount Hermon (Arabic: Jabal Al-Shaykh; Hebrew: Har Ḥermon) on the north, the seasonal Wadi Al-Ruqqād (a north-south branch of the Yarmūk River) on the east, and the Yarmūk River on the south. As a political unit the boundaries differ; Israel is the suzerain of almost all of the Golan except for a narrow strip in the east that follows the Israeli-Syrian armistice line of June 10, 1967, which was later modified by the separation of forces agreement of May 31, 1974. The Golan extends about 44 miles (71 km) from north to south and about 27 miles (43 km) from east to west at its widest point. It is roughly boat-shaped and has an area of 444 square miles (1,150 square km). The better agricultural land lies in its southern portion; the stony foothills of Mount Hermon in the north, with patches of woodland and scrub, are a stock-raising area. The Israeli portion of the Golan rises to 7,297 feet (2,224 metres) at its extreme northeast point on the Mount Hermon slopes.

History

In 1894 the French-Jewish banker Baron Edmond de Rothschild bought a large tract of land for Jewish settlement in the Golan; he was followed by other groups in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Jewish colonization was attempted but was frustrated by the hostility of the Arab population and by the Ottoman land laws, which virtually forbade settlement by nonnatives. After World War I the Golan became part of the French mandate of Syria and in 1941 passed to independent Syria. After the Arab-Israeli War of 1948–49, Syria fortified the western crest of the Golan Heights, which commands the Ḥula Valley, the Sea of Galilee, and the upper Jordan River valley, all in Israel. In these sections many Israeli civilians were killed by Syrian artillery and sniper fire; agriculture and fishing were rendered difficult, and at times impossible.

On the last two days (June 9–10, 1967) of the Six-Day War, the Israeli armed forces, after defeating Egypt and Jordan, turned their attention to Syria. Under cover of the Israel Air Force, engineer troops built access roads up the steep Golan Heights, which were then frontally assaulted by armoured vehicles and infantry. The Syrian defenders and most of the Arab inhabitants fled, and Syria asked for an armistice; fighting ceased on June 10. The heights were placed under Israeli military administration, and Golan was integrated into the communications and financial framework of Israel. Five villages of mostly Druze Arabs remained and were offered Israeli citizenship, though most declined and retained Syrian citizenship. By the late 1970s nearly 30 Jewish settlements had been established on the heights, and in 1981 Israel unilaterally annexed the area.

A disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, signed following the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, established a United Nations buffer zone in the Golan Heights, monitored by a UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). The UNDOF mandate was renewed every six months thereafter.

Negotiations between Syria and Israel, initiated during bilateral talks held in Madrid in 1991, continued intermittently until they broke down in 2000 over Syria’s insistence on Israel’s full withdrawal from the Golan Heights territory. Discussions between the two countries were renewed in 2008 through the mediation of Turkey, which was then a close ally of both countries, but those talks fell apart after the resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Meanwhile, developments in both Israel and the region in the 2010s stirred the traditionally quietist Golan Druze to become more vocal about their status: Israel witnessed an uptick in citizenship applications from some in the community, while others began holding public rallies reaffirming loyalty to Syria. In March 2019 the United States became the only country to recognize Israel’s annexation of the region.