Situated high up on Israel’s northern frontier with Syria and Lebanon, the Golan Heights is one of the most contentious places on the planet. With Syria insistent that the territory should be returned, and Israel equally adamant that doing so is impossible, the issue continues to divide opinion. Read on here for some lesser-known facts about the region, and check out our guide for an in-depth look at the region’s area, its history and people.
Jewish history in the Golan dates back to Biblical times, with the existence of Jewish life in the area recorded in various texts, including the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua. Back then, the region was known as the Bashan. The name Golan itself derives from a city of the same name in the Bashan region, which the Bible (Deuteronomy 4:43) documents as one of 60-something fortified cities in the area. Golan functioned as a ‘city of refuge,’ a place where people suspected of manslaughter were allowed to flee to avoid reprisal.
Although the Jewish people were exiled from the Land of Israel on numerous occasions, Jewish exiles returned from Assyria, Babylonia and the region during numerous periods, even defying the great Roman army. The area is brimming with historic artifacts testifying to Jewish communal life in the land, and the repeated turnovers of control as the region was repeatedly taken, wrested back, and seized again.
Israel Views The Golan Heights As a Crucial Strategic and Security Asset
Despite Syria signing an armistice agreement with Israel in 1949, peace did not ensue. With the clear height advantage over Israel’s northern-most communities afforded by the imperious Golan Heights, Syria was well placed to make life very difficult for its Israeli neighbors. Over the following years, Syrian artillery fire regularly plagued the northern Israel, and intermittent hostilities broke out, with both sides making incursions into the other’s territory. Syrian forces regularly attacked Israeli farmers and Syrian Prime Minister Salah Bitar bombastically declared in 1963 that the Arab states would wage “an unyielding campaign to prevent [Israel] from realizing its dream” of making the desert flourish with water from the Jordan River.
Things came to a head in April 1967 when Israeli tractors were targeted by Syrian machine gun and anti-aircraft fire, sparking a confrontation involving over 130 planes between the Israeli and Syrian air forces.
After taking the territory in the Six-Day War, Israel found itself in a position in which its troops were positioned within artillery range of Damascus, the Syrian capital. Whereas before Israel was dominated by Syria, it now found itself in a position of military supremacy and able to put an end to the regular incursions that had blighted the state’s first two decades of existence. With Israel taking the highest mountain in the ridge, known as Mount Hermon in Hebrew and Jabal al-Shaykh(“Mountain of the Sheikh”) in Arabic, along with other strong strategic locations, the entire dynamic of the frontier changed. When Israel was initially pinned back by a surprise attack in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the height advantage and strategic location afforded by the peaks of Mount Bental allowed a clutch of a few dozen Israeli troops to hold back a Syrian force of hundreds.
Given the military advantage of holding onto the Golan Heights, and the immense disadvantage of losing the high ground, in the eyes of many Israelis, returning the land to Syria in the absence of a lasting peace agreement achieved through fair negotiations is unthinkable and practically suicidal.
Actually, technically it’s not a border at all, but an armistice line. Either way, half a year after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel and Syria signed a new ceasefire agreement which left almost the entirety of the Golan under Israeli control. However, the agreement also saw a buffer zone amounting to about 5% of the disputed land transferred to Syria and incorporated into a demilitarized zone governed by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
This zone, split into numerous sub-sections, runs adjacent to the ceasefire line in an area about 80km long and ranging between 0.5km to 10km wide. It includes areas designated as an Area of Separation (AOF) that neither Syrian nor Israeli troops are permitted to enter, as well as Areas of Limitation, in which each side is allowed a limited number of troops and weaponry. About one thousand UNDOF troops are stationed in the region to keep the peace.
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