Much of the western media follows the Israeli-initiated habit of thinking and speaking about the issue of Golan only in (very threatening) strategic terms. But Golan is also– like the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza– a frequently heart-rending human story, one of dispossession, exile, oppression, and the splitting-up of families.
You can read a lot about the human dimension of Golan in Golan Days, a series of five articles that I published in Arabic in al-Hayat in 1998. They were the result of research/reporting trips I had made to Israel, occupied Golan, and Syria earlier that year.
Note that Israel unilaterally annexed Golan in 1981. But that act of Anschluss was quite illegal under international law. During the Israeli-Syrian negotiations of the early and mid-1990s, Israeli premiers Rabin and Peres promised the U.S. that, if they could win the security, economic, and political measures they desired from Syria, then Israel would be ready to withdraw from the whole of the Golan.Those negotiations failed after that Israeli offer was abruptly pulled off the table by Ehud Barak in 2000.
Meanwhile, throughout and since the 1990s Israel’s policy of implanting settlers on the broad, fertile expanses of Golan’s land has continued, though not with the fervor and frenzy of the settlement project in the West Bank. In 2006, there were 18,105 settlers on Golan, according to this table from the Foundation for Middle East Peace (which is an excellent source on the Israel’s settlement project in the West Bank, too.)
Before Israel occupied Golan in 1967, there was a population of around 130,000 Syrians in the area, mainly farmers. This 2000 map (PDF) from FMEP shows you the ghosts of the villages and towns that they left behind them– the empty grey circles and squares there. Tragically, in the fighting of 1967, nearly the whole of the indigenous Syrian population of Golan fled or was forced out. Their national army, which had previously held the whole of the Golan plateau, had suffered a humiliating rout.
Only a small number remained– mainly followers of the Druze religion, who lived in winding villages clinging to the slopes of Jebel al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon). You can see their five villages in grey near the top of the map. Nowadays, they have, I think, around the same population as that of the Israeli settlements– but living under very different circumstances from the land-pampered settlers. You can read a little about the lives of the Golan Syrians who still live in their family’s ancestral homes, in Parts 1 and 2 of my Golan days series.
Also, you should go look at the two installments of an English Al-Jazeera documentary called Across the Shouting Valley, that are available on YouTube here and here. They very movingly portray the human and many other dimensions of the Golan issue. They have some interesting interviews with settlers; and they have many beautiful shots of the Golan landscape, too.
(Great job, Al-Jazeera!)
The second installment there has a short interview with an Israeli settler called Effie Eitam who is also a leader of one of Israel’s rightwing parties. But in general, the political profile of most of the settlers in Golan is significantly different from that of the West Bank settlers. For starters, Golan is not generally considered by most Jews to be part of the historic “Land of Israel”. So there is very little of that intense, religio-nationalist fervor that marks the activities of many West bank settlers. Secondly, putting settlements on the Golan was overwhelmingly a project of Labour governments in Israel, who put them there for reasons that– at the time, in the late 1960s– were much more justifiably “for security reasons” than most of the settlements in the west Bank. (Since then, of course, the development of long-distance missiles means that possession of the high ground in Golan is no longer the strategic “ace in the hole” that it once was.)
But the result is that the 18,000 Golan settlers are much more likely to be long-time Labour supporters than most of the West Bank settlers. And though many of their most vocal community leaders are staunchly on the hawkish, pro-territorial expansion wing of Labour, there are many others who are not– including a very interesting farmer called Yigal Kipnis whom I met and talked to back in 1998, as you can see in Part 4 of the series.
Read in particular, his views on the possibility of Israel withdrawing in the context of a peace treaty:
- “We need to remember that we came here in 1967 to protect our own settlements inside Israel, and to protect our water rights — not to take any extra land. Our presence here was and is still intended to provide that protection. But if we have a peace agreement with Syria, the situation would be quite different — provided those things were protected.”
(Yigal still lives in the settlement of Maale Gamla. He and I kept in touch in a rough fashion after that. Some time later he enrolled in a Ph.D program in Haifa University– and wrote his whole thesis there on the Israeli political aspects of the Golan issue. I met him again recently in Washington DC. I want to help him get some of his work made available in English– it seems like fascinating stuff!)
Anyway, it has long mystified me why the Syrians have not done more to explain some of the human dimensions of the Golan issue, which are often just as heart-rending as all those “Let y people go!” campaigns that US Jewish organizations ran in favor the Soviet Jews back in the 1980s. Instead, the Syrians have allowed the Israeli narrative of Golan as “simply a strategic question– and an Israelo-centric one, at that” to dominate all discussion of the Golan issue in the west. Human-interest-centered stories about political issues may seem trite. But still, they do have a great power to help frame the way that people think about the political issues involved… But from the way Golan is presented in the western media, you’d think that it is just a single, steep and potentially very threatening strategic escarpment and has no human dimension at all. Not true!
(You could call this the “vertical” view of Golan– as opposed to a “horizontal” view that takes into account the fact that there’s a huge expanse of lovely, fertile land up there; and that there are people from both nationalities who have histories, lives, and claims there.)
I guess in my wondering– and discussing with a few Syrian friends– why the Syrian government has not done more to “humanize” the issue, I concluded that could perhaps be explained by two factors: (1) a lingering sense of shame about the extent and seriousness of the collapse that the national army’s whole network of positions in Golan experienced in 1967, and (2) a reluctance to do too much to empower and/or mobilize the Golani Syrians within the national political system.
By some counts, the “nazeheen” (displaced persons) from Golan and their descendants now number more than a quarter million. And of course, under international law (and human logic) they have every right to be able to return to their ancestral homes and properties there.
Unlike the Palestinians displaced in 1948 and 1967, the Syrian nazeheen did have a government that provided them with the basic services they needed to survive and to get a fairly good start in life: basic housing, health, and education services. And like many displaced persons throughout history they have actually, in general, done pretty well in the Syrian economy and professions, and in the Syrian migrant-labor community in the Gulf. But Syria’s Baathist government is chronically wary of seeing any auto-mobilization of sub-groups within the society, so maybe its failure to present the wrenching human dramas of the split and dispossessed families more effectively to the outside world has something to do with that, too.
So if the Syrian-Israeli negotiations do get resumed in earnest in the days and weeks ahead, I’ll probably try to follow up on some of these human interest stories.
If the parties were willing to compromise, this could be solved easily.
Most of the Israeli settlements, as well as the most developed, industry, etc, are near the south. Allow Israel to retain those portions and create a security strip where the Heights overlook Israel. Syria gets back the rest.
Unfortunately, Syria has taken an absolutist stance, demanding all territory, even that which was only Syrian by virtue of it’s conquest in 1948 (funny how the inadmissibility of territory acquired by force only seems to be applied to one nation). Notwithstanding Helena’s claims, international law does not require Israel to give back all of the Golan (which in fact has a significantly more storied history of Jewish presence than Helena cares to admit). Nor does international law require that individuals or their descendants get back the exact same land that they once lived on.
I did speak with a Golan settler once. She basically said that if there was a “true peace” then they would be willing to make the sacrifice and move. But she also said that, given how prior Israeli withdrawls, both negotiated and unilateral, have fared, that she did not see such peace forthcoming.
I must say this has been amusing to read. Helena cavalierly dismissed the Annapolis meetings as a charade, yet all of a sudden she is up to multiple blog entries a day on the issues surrounding them. All of course, demanding everything from Israel, and nothing from its belligerent neighbors. How sad. How hateful.
Of course, perhaps she can show her willingness to support a compromise.
“…there are people from both nationalities who have histories, lives, and claims there”
What legitimate claim does any Israeli have in the Golan have as illegal colonists on stolen and ethnically cleansed land? In fact, the case of the Golan Heights is even clearer than that of the OPT given that it is sovereign territory of a state. Those colonists have profited by stealing the natural resources of sovereign Syrian land. They have profited from the ethnic cleansing of that land – Israel’s most successful ethnic cleansing to date. How can they possibly have a legitimate claim? And if any of them is a decent human being, how can they live with themselves?
The land was brought under Israel’s control in a defensive war by an enemy that refused to recognize it even when Israel did not occupy a sliver of land. To negotiate an end to the hostilities, the parties can agree upon border adjustments, like what has been done to end many wars.
But given your repeated hateful diatribes against Israelis, I suppose we can put you in the “anti-peace” camp.
Joshua, you keep trying to throw the word “hateful” at me in the hope the designation will stick. But at least in this discussion you try to adduce an argument or two alongside the namecalling, which i suppose is some improvement.
On their merits, however, your arguments really don’t seem convincing yet. Have you heard about “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force”, or has that whole important development of international law over the past century passed you by?
Yes of course the parties should negotiate the terms of the peace– as Syria has been eager to do for many years now, and as Israel was episodically interested in doing back in the 1990s. At the Wye Plantation talks in ’96 the two sides got pretty darn close to the final agreement. What is your view of those talks and the kinds of provisions for peace they were discussing there? Did you think they were good or not? (If you think they were not good, does that make you “anti-peace”, to use another of your own favored namecallings, there.)
But seriously, what did you think of the Wye provisions, which came so, so close to being consummated into a final peace agreement?
The spoiled brat syndrome…Ok, so if HC is hateful, why bother? Why not just spend time at Daniel Pipes, Richard Perle, or other hate mongerers websites? It is so typical…when I hear this kind of slander and immaturity, I think of students who do not like the grade they get and then write something nasty on ratemyprof. com…why even reply?
Finally, so what if someone thinks your hateful? Does it MEAN YOU ARE? Ooohh..so scary…someone thinks your hateful…
KDJ
Helena,
Your constant refrain of “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force” gets stale after a while. Nothing in that sentence fragment (which you have divorced of all meaningful context) prevents parties from agreeing to modify boundaries to end hostilities. It was the Arabs that tried to do away with Israel by force, not vice versa. And nothing in international law allows them to engage in rejectionist stances for decades and then all of a sudden say “We get it all back now.” Over the past century, plenty of defeated belligerents have had to lose territory as a result of their misadventures.
As for the proposed agreements, my opinion is, if the two parties are willing to agree to it, I’m more than happy for them. So while I find your chronicling of the various negotiations misleading, if the parties did ultimately agree to something along those lines I would not object. On the other hand, to the extent Israel doesn’t agree, they don’t deserve blame. Given the absolutist demands of the Syrians, it would be more reasonable to note their unwillingness to compromise than Israel’s willingness to concede almost everything they obtained in a defensive fight for their existence against a racist enemy.
And if you don’t like being called hateful, then don’t be so hateful. You know, ommmmmmm, and all that.
Selfishly, and H, I wish you engaged with this issue more, the positive development about Syria’s presence at Annapolis is the opportunity to bring up the issue of the Lebanese detainees in Syria…of which there are hundreds….I have urged Canada’s FM to raise issue…those poor families…really…decades…A key issue that can bring results through this meeting…
What is interesting and dangerous is the exclusion of Iran…as much as I deplore this current regime…de-radicalizing Iran’s political situation is very crucial.
KDJ, while I agree with you completely about the Lebanese detainees in Syria, it is my understanding that the (ostensible) focus of this conference is the conflict with Israel. Bringing up an issue between Syria and Lebanon it seems to me would take focus off of that conflict, take away any small onus there might be on Israel to do something useful there, and turn the event into yet another opportunity to engage in Syria-bashing, which is of particular concern now given that Syria appears to be second after Iran on the Bushies’ crusade agenda.
I see your point regarding Iran, too, but the most conspicuous absence seems to me to be Hamas, or any other legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
In conversations I’ve had with contemporary IDF troopers, the Golan was seized by means of Israel successfully breaking into the Syrian signals/communication network. The result being the Syrians were fooled into believing that an Israeli breakthrough had occurred and that the IDF was marching on Damascus. The Syrians abandoned their state-of-the-art Soviet built fortifications and the rest is history.
Recently, it should be pointed out that during the summer of 2006, Hezbollah successfully intercepted Israeli signals/communications, enabling it to maintain a fortified line against the IDF offensive.
The question is: Someone thinks your hateful. Big deal-why do you care? Does your life and self-esteem hinge on the capacity to name-call?
Shirin, it is not about this for me-Surely, Syria bashing does not help-rather, it is about _strategic opportunity_
Shouldn’t the Golan “narrative” include the Syrian shelling of Israeli fishermen on Lake Tiberius?
Someone whom I respect enormously is Dr. Paul Salem, Carnegie Center Director-
Find his important statement on the dangerous Lebanon impasse here:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=19727&prog=zgp&proj=zme
Truesdell, hi. I realize that in this short post I didn’t deal at all with the situation between Israel and Syria prior to 1967. I did in one of my recent posts, however (can’t remember which one– also, it might have been a comment I contributed there.)
Basically, though, there were a lot of infractions of the 1949 truce agreement in the years 1949-67– infractions from both sides, but more so from the Israeli side. I’m basing that judgment on my reading of the memoir by Gen. Odd Bull, who was the Norwegian Chief of Staff of UNTSO 1963-70. In the west, one hears mainly the Israeli side of all these stories– and guess what, in the Arab and muslim worlds one hears mainly the Syrian side. But Bull was in a great position to receive, compile, and evaluate reports from both sides and from his officers deployed along the Armistice Line itself.
Parenthetically it is precisely the presence of that kind of neutral truce-monitoring presence that can make a truce :stick”, even for a long time– as the Israeli-Syrian disengagement agreement of 1974 similarly has. (It is monitored by a force called UNDOF.) However, many Israeli leaders dislike having any such neutral monitoring presence around, since they judge it limits their “freedom of action” (i.e. their ability to violate ceasefires and get away with it.) Hence, in 2000, Barak preferred a unilateral, i.e. un-negotiated, withdrawal from Lebanon and in 2005 Sharon preferred an unnegotiated withdrawal from Gaza. Imho, negotiated agreements are nearly always much, much better and prove more stable.
Of course, a negotiated FINAL peace agreement on any front is the best outcome possible. And even in this case, the presence of a mutually agreed, neutral observation/monitoring force can provide a v. valuable degree of reassurance to both sides– as, for example, the MNF in Sinai has done since 1982.
Helena, I wonder if you’d like to start a thread based on this quote:
“Everybody at Annapolis has something in common,” he said. “It’s not love of Israel or the Palestinians. It’s fear of Iran. Everyone needs a relative to protect them from Iran.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/washington/28assess.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
“Everybody at Annapolis has something in common,” he said. “It’s not love of Israel or the Palestinians. It’s fear of Iran. Everyone needs a relative to protect them from Iran.”
That sounds more like American wishful thinking than reality to me. I don’t anyone needs to be protected from Iran, a country that has no history of aggression. I think some Americans WANT everyone to be afraid of Iran.
Helena now brings up the case of Lebanon, where Israel did EVERYTHING demanded of it.
For years, Israel refused to withdraw, saying that it wanted to do so in the context of a NEGOTIATED peace agreement. If Lebanon agreed to recognition and peace, Israel would withdraw.
The Lebanese and their allies said “No, just get out, then you’ll have peace.”
So Israel did just that, and instead they have a Hezbollah occupied territory to the north and the Lebanese now moving the goalposts even further back, claiming they are entitled to even MORE territory.
Amazing that Helena blames Israel for doing exactly what it was told to do.
What Lebanon did do is make many people justifiably cynical about the claims that “occupation” is the root of the problem, even those that ultimately want the occupation to end.
Joshua, thank you for coming here and expressing your point of view. Would I be wrong in guessing that when you say What Lebanon [2000] did do is make many people justifiably cynical.. you are describing your own viewpoint, not just that of “many others? Well, I guess the word “justifiably” makes it clear that that is so.
I understand your viewpoint and the thinking behind it. And I understand, too, that this view is shared by many other pro-Israelis. i understand the political implications of the view, too: an increased distrust and cynicism about the value of any peace “process” with neighbors.
But you know what? There are many other people in the world– yes, real people endowed with the capacity to reason and with just as many rights as persons in God’s world as you or I– who do not see things that way.
Surprising? Not really.
I have met numerous people, for example, who look at the fact that Israel withdrew unilaterally from Lebanon in 2000 after a sustained campaign of mass-plus-armed resistance there, while it had rebuffed and stalled on all the attempts the PLO and the Syrian government made during the 1990s to reach a negotiated, withdrawal-based full peace agreement– and they drew the conclusions that (1) Israel for some reason doesn’t value negotiated peace agreements any more, and (2) massively organized resistance using forceful and non-forceful means is the only way to get Israel to pull out of occupied lands.
I think that is also an understandable conclusion to draw. Note: I do not say “justifiable”. Justifiability of a train of reasoning is a different, and probably indeterminable matter. But understandable, yes.
So we have a problem. “Many people” drew the conclusion you described. Another group of “many people” drew the conclusion I described. Among the direct stakeholders to the Israeli-Arab conflict, a group of which neither you nor I is a member, probably a considerably larger number drew the conclusion I described. But either way– whichever of those two conclusions were drawn– the political outcome was to considerably increase distrust in the value of negotiations.
That is the big challenge. How can we all actually put life back into the idea of negotiating this peace? Trying to recognize that there are a multiplicity of ways of looking at the world… that our own viewpoints are not the only ones in the world… that views very different from our own may have their own rationality, and anyway need to be taken into account and engaged with: doing all that is, it seems to me, a far more fruitful way to proceed than continuing to live in a self-referential bubble in which the viewpoints of others are instantaneously discounted as as invalid (or “hateful”), even where they are recognized or acknowledged as existing at all.
“If the parties were willing to compromise, this could be solved easily.”
When one cuts to the chase, it all boils down to whether the central issue under negotiation in the Israel/Palestine dispute is the occupation or Israel’s very existence.
The first is difficult but possible; the latter is a nonstarter.
Tellingly, the players on the Arab side are not just Abbas and Fayyad but also Mashhad and Nasralla.
Your constant refrain of “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force” gets stale after a while.
Heh. Yes, no doubt OJ Simpson gets tired when he hears that tedious old saw “Thou shalt not kill”.
Basically, though, there were a lot of infractions of the 1949 truce agreement in the years 1949-67– infractions from both sides, but more so from the Israeli side. I’m basing that judgment on my reading of the memoir by Gen. Odd Bull . . .
Parenthetically it is precisely the presence of that kind of neutral truce-monitoring presence that can make a truce :stick”, even for a long time– as the Israeli-Syrian disengagement agreement of 1974 similarly has. (It is monitored by a force called UNDOF.) However, many Israeli leaders dislike having any such neutral monitoring presence around, since they judge it limits their “freedom of action” (i.e. their ability to violate ceasefires and get away with it.)
Very, very pertinant and refreshing comments. Bull’s predecessor as UNTSO Chief of Staff, Carl von Horn, was even more emphatic about the Israel’s responsibility for the majority of the incidents. In his memoirs von Horn says that it was clear that the Israelis were not looking for neutrality in an UNTSO Chief of Staff – they had a “with us or against us” attitude. Thanks, Helena.
Helena,
I agree. It is good to clear up misconceptions.
To clear up the misconceptions of “pro-Israelis” who have soured on the peace process (and I wouldn’t quite include myself in this camp) is a difficult task but possible. However, the various government and influential actors of the world should demand that the belligerent Arab countries and factions should immediately cease hostilities with Israel and offer appropriate reciprocity for the numerous concessions that Israel has made, both by agreement and unilaterally.
To clear up the misconceptions of those who think Israel does not want peace and only responds to force, the best response is a bit simpler, though not necessarily the most effective. One must merely point out that such an assumption has no basis in fact or logic. One could start by pointing out that Israel has, on many occasions, offered to negotiate. The Lebanon withdrawal is perhaps the best example, because as noted above, Israel was looking to negotiate a peace agreement with Lebanon for YEARS before it finally decided to leave unilaterally. So if the viewpoint that someone takes home from that episode is “Israel isn’t willing to negotiate” the response is simply to point out that their belief has no basis in fact.
Pointing that out may not change the person’s mind, particularly if their opinion stems from the bigotry that unfortunately is reflected in that position, but at least one can try. Have you ever tried that?
Israel was looking to negotiate a peace agreement with Lebanon for YEARS before it finally decided to leave unilaterally
For DECADES Israel refused to comply with UNSC resolutions that directed it to withdraw from Lebanon with no ifs, ands, buts or imposed “peace treaty”. Israel eventually did leave Lebanon because the military cost became too high. Similarly, Israel showed no interest in negotiating with Egypt over Sinai until the 1973 war.
I think Helena’s correct to say that although the use of force as a tactic may be a mistake, experience shows that it has been effective in getting Israel to move.