Golan Heights: Encyclopedia II - Golan Heights - History since World War I

Golan Heights - 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 the new independent state of Syria. They remained under Syrian authority until 1967.

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 (which oversaw the implementation of the Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement) reported many violations by each side. The Syrians fortified positions on the Heights, from which they shelled civilian targets in Israel and launched other attacks for the next 18 years. 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. According to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, former Israeli General Matityahu Peled claimed that more than half of the border clashes before the 1967 war "were a result of our security policy of maximum settlement in the demilitarized area"[12]. 140 Israelis were killed and many more were injured in these attacks from 1949 to 1967.

During the Six-Day War of 1967, the Israeli army 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).

About 90% (147,000) of the Golan's inhabitants, mainly Druze Arabs and Circassians, fled during the Six-Day War. For various political reasons, Israel has not allowed them to return[13]. 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 almost all the Heights in Israeli hands, while returning a narrow demilitarized zone to Syrian 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.

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 currently resident in the Golan is, roughly speaking, half Druze and half Jewish.

Although the Golan Heights has generally been a peaceful area, a number of Golan residents from Majdal Shams have been jailed by the Israeli authorities for involvement in armed activities against the Israeli occupation. [14].

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History since World War I", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki