Exercising Israel's Territorial Sovereignty

"The city of Gamala on the Golan derived its name from gamal (Hebrew for camel), since it was situated on a hill shaped like a camels rump. The Hasmonean ruler Alexander Yannaeus founded the city in the first century BCE and it continued to be inhabited by Jews, as attested to by Josephus Flavius (Antiquities of the Jews 13:394). Josephus, a Jew, was Commander of Galilee during the Jewish Revolt against Rome and in 66 CE fortified Gamala as his main stronghold on the Golan. He gives a very detailed topographical description of the city and describes the Roman siege under the command of Vespasian which led to its conquest in 67 CE. The Romans attempted to take the city by means of a siege ramp, but were turned back by the defenders; only on the second attempt did they succeed in penetrating the fortifications and conquering the city. Thousands of inhabitants were slaughtered, while others chose to jump to their deaths from the top of the cliff (Josephus, The Jewish War IV, 1-83). Gamala has not been rebuilt since."

Archaeological Sites in Israel-Gamala- Jewish City on the Golan, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

"[Control over the Golan remains of] real importance to Israel's security."

"Legal questions are something else and over time, if the situation were to change in Syria, that's something we look at, but we are nowhere near that."

U.S.Secretary of State Antony Blinken 

"It goes without saying that the Golan Heights are Israeli."

"The fact that the Trump administration recognized that and the fact that the Biden administration made clear there is no change in that policy is also important."

Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967   Getty Images

Western colonial powers, France and Britain, when they occupied the Middle East between them, decided on arbitrary borders for nascent states and for states that they would usher into being, such as Jordan, given to the Hashemites as solace for the Saudis given Arabia which the Hashemites had earmarked as their territory. The Golan which from antiquity, was part of Jewish heritage, was apportioned to Syria.

 

But when nations declare war on other nations with the intention of demolishing their presence and taking their territory, it is the nation that wins the conflict that customarily throughout history, claims the geographical territorial spoils as their own. Which, in 1967, led to Israel re-claiming the Golan Heights from Syria and finally in 1981, annexing the territory to gather it into greater Israel. Every time hostile Arab nations surrounding Israel marched to destroy it, Israel successfully defended itself.

The Golan Heights is a strategic gain for Israel. Formerly, Syria used it to rain down artillery shells into Israel. Astride the heights now on the territory belonging to Syria, its military and Shiite militias under Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps occasionally lob missiles into Jewish border towns and farming communities. While Syria demands the return of the Golan to its possession, and the international community continues its non-recognition of Israel's rights to the Golan, for Israel to relinquish it would be suicidal.

 

While still under Syrian control, the Golan Heights were used to bombard Israeli territory below  Getty Images

 

Recently the Israeli government announced its intention to increase the Israeli population level on the Golan, with stated plans of building thousands of new homes and to establish new towns for people to populate in what will increasingly become a fertile agricultural area of wide dimensions, increasing its current agricultural activity and output on the 1,200-square-kilometre territory.

Israel has given itself a goal of five years to establish a doubling of the current population numbers in the Golan. That tacit recognition was given Israel's right to maintain sovereignty over the Golan Heights by former President Trump's administration, continued for the present by his successor administration  under Joe Biden, lends support to Israel's ownership of the territory on the international stage.

"The aim of the decision is to double the number of (Israeli) residents in the Golan in the coming years, meaning an addition of 23,000 people in the area", read a statement issued by Prime Minister Bennett's office. In addition to Israeli Jews populating the Golan there is a 20,000 Druze population living there, which continues to identify itself as governed by Syria.

Every country in the world is free to administer its territory as it sees fit. Israel alone has been singled out for condemnation for exerting its national right to enact policies and to practise the right of administration on land intrinsic to its heritage and to its current re-establishment as a state among states of the world body of states. Much of the world throws its support toward Arabs who call themselves Palestinians who had migrated to a part of the Middle East where being Palestinian always referred to its Jewish inhabitants.

These latter-day 'Palestinians' claiming to have predated even Biblical Judea, claiming Jesus and Moses as 'Palestinian' Arabs, contest Israel for its heritage sites of East Jerusalem and the sacred sites of historical Israel, from the Second Temple to the memorial sites of the Biblical-era prophets of Israel. Claims so absurd they make a mockery of history and human intelligence.

 

Golan Heights : Part of Israel's Defence Strategy

"The Golan was always seen as the carrot that Israel would cede for peace with Syria, and now peace doesn't matter, Syria doesn't matter."
Kareem Sakka, editor-in-chief, Raseef22, Arabic news site

“Following the Arab Spring in Syria, 90% of the Druze prefer Israeli sovereignty. There’s no question here at all. Three hundred people went to protest [The U.S. decision to recognize the Golan Heights as part of sovereign Israel] out of 24,000 Druze. That’s nothing. Supporters of Syrian nationalism are few."
"Many [Druze living in villages on the Golan Heights] have family across the fence [in Syria]. They fear that if they support Israel, their families in Syria will be harassed."
"[The Druze don’t feel safe siding with Israel.] Israelis have a history of returning territory. Israel was in Lebanon for 25 years and then abandoned its allies. The same story happened with Yamit in Sinai [returned to Egypt]. For years Israeli governments have held overt negotiations over returning the West Bank and covert negotiations over returning the Golan Heights. People [here] think that Israel could leave the territory, and whoever supported the Israelis would pay a heavy price."
Abbas Abu Awad, head, Buqa’ata local council, Golan Heights, Israel

"The discussion among the Druze is divided between the public and the personal. In public they have to support Assad, but in private conversation you hear the complete opposite. They support remaining under Israeli rule."
"[In a few years, opposition to naturalization will decrease substantially.] Israel has controlled the Golan Heights for more years than Syria controlled it. Reality is more powerful than anything."

Eli Zigdon, chairman, Masaada committee

 

"The public, when they think about Syria, will be more concerned with the death and suffering [of the sectarian civil war] than with the official loss of something that has been gone for a long time."

"The notions of international order and international law are going to take a big hit here. Right now, what would we say to Saddam Hussein in Kuwait? 'We don't want you to be there'. 'O.K., on what basis'?"

Hussein Ibish, scholar, Arab Gulf States Institute 

Why it matters who controls the Golan Heights

For a purported scholar Mr. Ibish doesn't appear to be a very big thinker, with a well-rounded perspective and an understanding of international law, particularly the distinction between offense and defence. When a nation is attacked repeatedly and fights back to protect itself and its inhabitants, repelling the attacking force and gaining territory in the process, the return of that territory hinges on whether or not the attackers are prepared to retreat from their position and the victorious nation is prepared to return their gains.

Under international law, every sovereign nation is entitled to protect itself from invaders intent on forcing armed conflict on an invaded state with a view to defeating it and eradicating its borders along with destroying or looting its possessions. Territory gained, particularly territory that has a defensive purpose is rarely returned. Syria repeatedly refused to sign a peace treaty with Israel even when informed time and again the Golan Heights would be returned only with the signing of such a treaty.

On the other hand, when one country invades another with the purpose of destroying its sovereignty over part of its territory and the invading country claims the territory it has taken as its own, this is clearly a contravention of international law. That Iraq invaded Kuwait, claiming it was once part of Iraq and with the intention of extending Iraq's borders to include the tiny oil emirate demonstrating a clear international crime has no comparison with Israel's defence and Syria's invasion.

 

It is more analogous to China's accession of Tibet, Turkey's illegal invasion of Cyprus, occupation of Kurdish heritage geography, and Russia's Crimea and Donbass grab in Ukraine and attacks in Georgia.

 

 

Both China and Russia, permanently sitting on the United Nations Security Council, feel secure in condemning the United States for its recognition of Israel's de facto and legal sovereignty of the Golan Heights as a necessary aid to its self-defence from the sinister plans of future attacks from Syria, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran's Republican Guard Corps and Shiite militias. And Turkey feels secure in decrying the possession by Israel of 'Islamic' territory; corrupt, territorial bandits, all of them.

 

As for the Arab Gulf countries in the Middle East, a disinterested shrug more likely reflects their current attitude, given the tense relations between the majority Sunni Muslim nations and their Persian Shiite adversary with its territorial expansion plans to increase its influence and hoped-for-conquest of the Middle East, after destroying Israel. As a strategic military area the Golan Heights is a necessary military defense for Israel against a sworn and intransigent enemy, a decided asset Israel must continue to hold.

The Arab Druze representing its original inhabitants, have avoided taking a political position. The 22,000 Arab Druze living on the Golan have been joined by Israeli settlers living in dozens of settlements and where the settlers have planted orchards, built wineries, hotels and a ski resort, resources of the area used to good advantage for all its residents. Arab Sunni groups took note that al-Assad bombed Syrian cities, gassed his rebellious Sunni Syrian citizens to retain power.

 

The brutality that the Syrian regime imposed upon its own has resulted in few other Arab leaders interested in supporting Syria on this issue of Israel retaining not the spoils of war, but the very symbol of its need to protect itself from having the Golan once again fall back into the malevolent hands of a pitiless war-monger for whom divisive brutality represents the dignity of Arab Medieval history, not a willingness to live in peace and security and co-operation.

CHILDREN PULL SNOW sleds at the Mount Hermon ski resort in the Golan Heights this week.. (photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)

Israel, Claiming Its Own

"The Six-Day War involved three distinct battlefronts, tied together by a shared desire on the part of the surrounding Arab states to eliminate Israel and erase the shame of their defeat 19 years earlier when they failed to destroy the nascent Jewish state."

"Egypt, the largest Arab state with a population of 31 million, massed troops on its border with Israel and imposed a naval blockade of Israel’s southern port, an act of war. Confronted with these aggressive moves, and the Arab leaders' promises to destroy the Jewish state, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against the Egyptian army and airforce. Egypt’s air force was quickly crippled, and a well-executed Israeli ground offensive routed the Egyptian forces in Gaza and the Sinai peninsula in four days."

"Buoyed by false reports of Egyptian success, Jordan initiated offensive actions against Israel from the eastern portion of Jerusalem and from lands it occupied west of the Jordan river (the West Bank). Israeli forces responded by attacking Jordanian military positions. After a three days of fierce fighting, especially in and around Jerusalem, Israeli forces defeated the Jordanians and gained control of all of Jerusalem as well as the West Bank, the historical heartland of the Jewish people known to Israelis as Judea and Samaria."

"Following an air attack by the Syrians on the first day of the war, Israel dealt a shattering blow to the Syrian air force. Hostilities continued in the days that followed, and on fifth day of the war, the Israelis mustered enough forces to remove the Syrian threat from the Golan Heights. This difficult operation was completed the following day, bringing the active phase of the war to a close."

An Israeli soldier in the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur of 1973 © Getty

One attempt after another by massed and co-ordinated Arab armies failed to dislodge Israel from the Middle East. The 1967 war imposed upon Israel by Egypt, Syria and Jordan selecting the most holy day in the Judaic religious calendar when the Jewish population would be observing the traditional High Holiday Day of Atonement took Israel by surprise, as it was meant to do. But the country had a goal of its own, to survive by any means, and survive it did, the memory of the Holocaust still fresh in the collective memory of its fighting troops.

Post-war Israel finally surrendered the Sinai, releasing it back to Egypt, despite the massive infrastructure funding it had expended in the peninsula, in exchange for something infinitely more precious to Israel; peace with its largest neighbour. To Jordan it extended the courtesy of control over the Muslim religious sites in east Jerusalem, despite that Israel's most sacred areas of its religious heritage are also located there. Mindful of Syria's penchant for bombing Israel from the Golan Heights, Israel's possession of the heights gained it an obvious protective advantage.

"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."
U.S. President Donald Trump

"If we’re going to talk about Syria, I think it’s important for me to thank President Trump for recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights."
"It’s so significant in historical terms because 52 years ago we acquired that territory in a defensive war. There’s one thing to achieve a military victory, which our brave soldiers did. It’s another thing to translate that military victory into a diplomatic victory. It took us 52 years to do that, and I think it will formally be declared, that diplomatic victory, tomorrow at the White House, and the people of Israel are very grateful to President Trump."
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer

Israeli tanks in action on the Golan Heights during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war © AFP

Time and again Syria threatened to take back the Golan Heights from Israel. Israel has stated its willingness to return the Heights to Syria, in exchange for a peace agreement. That, despite settlement on the Heights, massive investment and pride in having taken it from an avowed enemy who, along with Egyptian and Jordanian cohorts intended to destroy Israel. Of the three, two decided post-war to sign peace agreements with Israel. Syria remained the holdout. Imagine now, signing a peace agreement with a tyrannical murderer with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Syrians on his hands.

How could trust and neighbourly reliance ever be established with such a vicious monster? Just as well that even its remotest contemplation would never become a reality. Arab states may be prepared to relent and re-admit Syria to the Arab League, shrugging off Bashar al-Assad's Shiite Alawite legacy of slaughter and destruction in a sectarian war with the help of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its subordinate Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist militias, but it's a stretch too far for a democratic nation to confer legitimacy on such a monstrous tyrant.

FILE Photo: An Israeli soldiers stands guard at an outpost in the Golan Heights.   AFP

The 500-square-mile territory that Israel controls is Israel's by right of defence of its tiny territory against violently invading armies who despite their numbers and the conviction of their hatred against Jews were unable to dislodge the Jewish nation from its heritage landscape. While Syria spent the half-century since Israel's successful defence of its Middle East presence and subsequent annexation of the Golan Heights, demanding its return, Israel made its own demands in exchange; a peace agreement.

In the final analysis, the Golan Heights is Israel's, and Israelis in general hold it to be so. The Knesset annexed the territory by law in 1981 and still negotiations continued; overtures to Syria to exchange the Heights for peace. Until the Syrian civil war intervened and the Syrian Assad regime demonstrated convincingly that no 'agreements' with such a regime could be tolerated. Iran now co-rules Syria, the regime becoming as much a proxy as Hezbollah and Iranian-linked Shiite militias.

As far as the international community is concerned, nothing has changed. They contend that the Golan Heights must be returned to Syria, in reflection of 1967 'borders' the international community approves of as the demarcation line between Israel and its neighbourly neighbours. They might believe in the simple utility of "land for peace", but Israel has some very notable examples of how well that works; Gaza an outstanding example of a unilateral effort that went nowhere.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967   Getty Images