11 December 2006

Topics covered

The UN and the Golan Heights
The Golan Heights Law
UN resolutions
UN human rights reports
The Golan Heights then and now
Identity
Education
Water
Settlements
Agriculture
Industry
Tourism
Landmines
Nuclear waste
Strategic importance
Israeli-Syrian peace talks
Prospects for Israeli-Syrian peace

The West Bank and Gaza Strip are the occupied territories mostly commonly mentioned in today's media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also at issue is the Golan Heights, Syrian territory militarily conquered by Israel since 1967 and illegally annexed on 14 December 1981. A good map showing the area of occupation can be viewed at:

http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/MAPS/Golan_Heights_West_Bank_under_occupation.htm

The UN and the Golan Heights

The response of the UN (which always refers to the area as "the Syrian Golan Heights") to Israel's territorial gains in 1967 was of condemnation, resulting in Security Council resolution 242 which emphasised the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war," and stipulated that a just and lasting peace requires the "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict." The full text of the resolution can be viewed at:

http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/240/94/IMG/NR024094.pdf?OpenElement

Syria tried unsuccessfully to recover the Golan Heights from Israel in 1973. Both countries signed an armistice agreement in 1974, since when a UN Disengagement Force (UNDOF) has been in place on the ceasefire line. The UNDOF website is at:

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/undof/index.html

The Golan Heights Law

The Golan Heights were illegally annexed by Israel through the passing by the Knesset (parliament) of the Golan Heights Law on 14 December 1981, thus applying Israeli laws, jurisdiction and administration to anyone living in the territory, irrespective of origin. The text of the law can be viewed at:

http://mondediplo.com/focus/mideast/a2351

UN resolutions

In response, the UN Security Council issued resolution 497, "reaffirming that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, the principles of international law, and relevant Security Council resolutions." Furthermore, the resolution:

1. "Decides that the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect;"

2. "Demands that Israel, the occupying Power, should rescind forthwith its decision;"

3. "Determines that all the provisions of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 continue to apply to the Syrian territory occupied by Israel since June 1967;"

4. "Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the implementation of this resolution within two weeks and decides that in the event of non-compliance by Israel, the Security Council would meet urgently, and not later than 5 January 1982, to consider taking appropriate measures in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations."

The full text of resolution 497 can be viewed at:

http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/73d6b4c70d1a92b7852560df0064f101?OpenDocument

The UN General Assembly has repeatedly passed resolutions condemning Israel's occupation and annexation of the Golan Heights. The annexation has never been recognised by the UN or accepted by the territory's indigenous population.

UN human rights reports

The human-rights situation in the Golan Heights is described in UN reports as one of "persistent" and "significant deterioration."

The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories produces annual reports which vary in length and detail, with subsequent reports adding to the content of previous ones, not necessarily repeating what has already been set out.

Following are extracts relating to the Golan Heights, selected for being both most recent and most instructive, from the 2002 report:

"As the occupation of the Golan has extended over a long period of time, the consequences of the occupation, in terms of its effects on the occupied Golan and its population, have been extensive, affecting all aspects of life and families, villages and communities."

"There were also widespread economic consequences of the occupation."

"Deterioration of the environment caused by the Israeli authorities has resulted from the uprooting of trees, burning of forests, and the release of chemical residue from Israeli factories and waste from settlements."

"The economic situation of Syrians in the occupied Golan is compounded by the lack of job opportunities. Many qualified Arabs from the occupied Golan are employed in menial jobs and are sometimes dismissed arbitrarily by their Israeli employers. Many workers are never paid or are not paid in full. Settlers compete with Syrians in economic terms in the area of agriculture, the principal activity of the Arab population of the occupied Golan. The competition is rendered more uneven by the restricted access of the Syrian inhabitants to water compared with the settlers."

"One of the principal negative impacts of the occupation of the occupied Syrian Golan has been the separation of families who live on either side of the valley constituting the demarcation line. Syrian students returning to their families in the occupied Syrian Golan reportedly face, upon arrival, severe hours of questioning, and the presents they bring with them are confiscated. Others are held in arbitrary detention for many days, facing torture and humiliation."

"Throughout the years of occupation, Israeli authorities have put in place a comprehensive and elaborate system of laws and regulations and administrative measures that affect all aspects of the lives of the Palestinian and Syrian peoples in the occupied territories. The laws and regulations are so framed that they vest in officials a considerable degree of authority and latitude over the lives of the people of the occupied territories. Moreover, during periods of violence, such exercise of control makes the lives of the Palestinian and Syrian peoples in the occupied territories even more unbearable."

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/68ecea2cd994bc9285256c6100569819?OpenDocument

The 2001 report is likewise very thorough. See pp26-52 of:

http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0/c843e183293507edc1256afd0058f9eb/$FILE/N0159425.pdf

The UN makes available an annual compilation entitled "Resolutions and Decisions of The General Assembly and The Security Council Relating to The Question of Palestine," which also refers to the Golan Heights. The compilation for 2005 can be viewed at:

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/eed216406b50bf6485256ce10072f637/9ebc37ad6582bc7b852571ca0052d497!OpenDocument

The UN is very thorough in its methodology and approach to the research, documentation and accessibility of all things related to the Golan Heights. For example, so far in 2006 there have been 39 relevant documents released. They have been issued, variously, from the Security Council, the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly, and the Economic and Social Council, and take the form of draft resolutions, reports of special committees, press releases, or Secretary General reports.

The documents quoted in this section are examples of these, and are by no means the definitive body of UN work. In fact, the quantity of documentation is very large. A full list is at:

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/vSubject!OpenView&Start=1&Count=150&Expand=42#42

The UN is not the only organisation to be concerned by the human rights situation. A 1998 Human Rights Watch report on the Golan Heights and other occupied Arab territories said that "Israel seriously misrepresents the degree of its fulfilment of its treaty obligations" in regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, signed by Israel in January 1992.

http://www.hrw.org/reports98/israel/Isrl988-02.htm#P82_11186

The Golan Heights then and now

Prior to 1967, the Syrian population of the Golan Heights was roughly 140,000, living in two cities (Quneitra and Afiq), 164 villages and 146 agricultural farms. Almost all of them were uprooted and expelled during and after the war, forced to relocate to refugee camps around Damascus and today numbering around half a million people.

Following Israel's conquest, the two cities, 130 villages and 112 agricultural farms were destroyed. Six villages with a total population of 7,000 remained. In 1971, the Israelis destroyed the village of Sukhatah and deported its residents to the adjacent village of Masadah. The place of Sukhatah was turned into a military base.

Today, the Golan communities are concentrated in five villages: Majdal Shams, Masadah, Buqatah and Ain Kinya to the north and east of the heights, and Ghajar in the northwest. Today the number of Syrians living in the Golan Heights totals around 20,000, the majority Druze with an Allawite minority. There are a similar number of Israeli settlers, and continued settlement, though illegal under international law, is actively encouraged.

Identity

At the time of the Golan Heights Law, the Arab population was obliged to change its citizenship from Syrian to Israeli, which was met with complete opposition and resulted in a six-month general strike and other non-violent actions. Identity cards handed out by the Israeli authorities were publicly burned, and eventually the authorities relented and allowed the Arab residents to retain their Syrian citizenship.

http://www.alternativenews.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=186&Itemid=70

Education

Following is an extract, relating to the Golan Heights, from a 2004 UN report investigating Israeli practices affecting the human rights of Arabs under occupation:

"In the area of education, Israeli authorities continued their attempt to impose the Hebrew language on Syrian pupils during the early stages of education, to focus attention on Jewish history and Hebrew literature, and to provide their own interpretation of the recent history of the occupied Golan, using unqualified teachers…These practices were aimed at eliminating the national identity of the new generation and at severing ties with their history, heritage, culture, nation and homeland."

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/1ce874ab1832a53e852570bb006dfaf6/1e414c5f991c948085256f46005b205c!OpenDocument

Furthermore, Israel's school textbooks do not show its pre-1967 borders. A call on 5 December 2006 by Israeli Education Minister Yuli Tamir for this to be amended brought fierce condemnation from right-wing MPs and Jewish settlers.

"You cannot teach history without knowing the borders Israel used to have," Tamir told army radio. "We can't teach children what happened in 1967 if they are not aware where the border runs. I want to show the students the reality we live in today and before 1967." She countered accusations that she was politicising the education system by saying that ignoring Israel's pre-1967 borders "is also a political decision."

Water

The value of the Golan Heights can be understood in terms of its natural resources, and accordingly the issue of sovereignty of the Arab population over its natural resources is of major importance, particularly water supply. Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) - Israel's only lake and its main source of fresh water, supplying the country with a third of its water - is fed from the Golan Heights.

For Arabs living in the Golan Heights, water is subject to strict controls over its use. According to Dr Taysir Marai, director of the Arab Association for the Development of the Golan, each Israeli settler in the territory is allotted 700 cubic metres of water per year per dunum, whereas Syrian residents are allotted just 70-100 cubic metres per dunum per year. From the 31 million square metres of water that is extracted each year, 28 million are allotted to the settlers, and only 4 million to the Syrian inhabitants.

This is a crucial factor because 96% of land use in the territory is agricultural, according to a UN Special Committee which visited the area in 1999.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=50597&d=28&m=8&y=2004

Settlements

Israel began to settle the Golan Heights almost immediately after its capture. Spread across the territory are 33 Israeli settlements, including 10 kibbutzim (agricultural collective settlements), 19 moshavim (agricultural cooperative settlements), two regional community centres in one larger township, and the local council centre, Katzrin.

These settlements, which currently house around 20,000 people, are illegal under international law because they are built on occupied territory. This is explicitly stated in several UN Security Council resolutions, describing Israel's settlement activity as a "flagrant violation" of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, and a "serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/Default.aspx?tabid=252

Nevertheless, on 6 December 2006 Interior Minister Roni Bar-On said Israelis should "come and live in the Golan Heights." Less than two weeks later, on 19 December, he said he intended to accelerate housing projects on settlements there. A leader of the Golan local council, Sami Bar-Lev, said the construction of 400 additional homes is under way in Katzrin, the largest Jewish settlement where about 7,500 people live.  

Agriculture

Golan land is fertile, with the volcanic soil being used to cultivate vineyards and orchards and to raise cattle. The land farmed by Israeli settlers encompasses 80 square kilometres. The Syrian population, though comparable in size to the settler population, farms a mere 20 square kilometres.

Industry

Settlements have allowed for the significant development of Israeli-operated and staffed industrial centres in Qatzrin and Bnei Yehuda, though the employment available to the Syrian population in the Golan Heights remains incredibly restricted and available only in the form of unskilled or semi-skilled wage labour, with no access to appropriate health or social benefits.

Tourism

The Golan serves as a profitable tourism centre for Israel. Over 1,000 rooms have been built to accommodate tourists while they enjoy attractions such as museums, battle sites, nature reserves, and Israel's only ski resort. These activities attract some 2.1 million visitors annually, and show no sign of being curtailed by the Israeli government.

In April 2000, the government approved a tourism project involving the building of a 400-room hotel, a commercial centre and a boardwalk at Kursi Junction on the shore of Lake Kinneret. This development includes plans for 2,500 new homes in the settlements of Had-Ness, Knaf, Gamala and Ramot.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/3393813.stm

Landmines

A UN Special Committee in 2004 noted that "the laying of anti-personnel landmines had continued. The Israeli authorities laid mines in 1,000 dunums of land in the Quneitra area along the Golan border strip and fenced them in with barbed wire, preventing farmers from cultivating their lands, as well as in the Harmon area, where trees had been uprooted" (paragraph.94).

According to a study by the human-rights organisation Al Haq, there are 76 minefields in the Golan Heights, some of them close to, bordering or inside inhabited villages. Since the Israeli occupation, 16 people have been killed by landmines and 45 disabled. Under international law, the occupying power is responsible for eliminating landmines that endanger the lives of inhabitants.

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/1ce874ab1832a53e852570bb006dfaf6/1e414c5f991c948085256f46005b205c!OpenDocument

Nuclear waste

The issue of nuclear waste was drawn attention to in a 2005 UN report: "Israeli authorities continued to bury their nuclear waste in a tract of land located about 100m from the summit of Jabal al-Sheikh, close to the Syrian border. Digging of a tunnel or trench in which to dump this waste was under way."

Fears are that the nuclear waste, sealed in glass containers or reinforced cement chambers, would be affected by climatic conditions after 30-50 years and would start leaking depleted uranium, with a catastrophic ecological impact.

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0080ef30efce525585256c38006eacae/6e3a6a238227c71c852570a6006e722d!OpenDocument

Strategic importance

The pro-Israel lobby continues to claim that the Golan Heights is of great strategic military importance to Israel due to the territory's topography and plateaus, which overlook southern Syria and northern Israel. Furthermore, they claim that Israel captured the territory in 1967 because it was used by Syria to menace its southern neighbour.

Firstly, the strategic value of a territory provides absolutely no moral or legal justification for its conquest by a foreign force.

Secondly, in the words of Israel's then-Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, released posthumously, Israeli policy on the Syrian border between 1949 and 1967 consisted of "snatching bits of territory and holding on to it until the enemy despairs and gives it to us." Concerning border incidents in the Golan Heights, he goes on:

"I know how 80 percent of the clashes there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: We would send a tractor to plow someplace where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also…" (Rami Tal, "Moshe Dayan: Soul Searching," Yediot Aharonot, 27 April 1997, cited Shlaim, pp. 235-6)

Thirdly, any previous military value the Golan had has long vanished due to major advances in missile and aerial technology. Indeed, Israel and Syria have missiles that can reach any part of either country.

In August 2004, Israel's then-Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon told the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot that there was no military reason why Israel could not withdraw to its pre-1967 border with Syria: "If you ask me, theoretically, if we can reach an agreement with Syria...my answer is that from a military standpoint it is possible to reach an agreement by giving up the Golan Heights. The army is able to defend any border."

Israeli-Syrian peace talks

In accordance with the Madrid Framework established at the Madrid Conference of October 1991, various talks have taken place with a view to settling the issue of the Golan Heights.

These have been held at varying levels in 1994, December 1995 - January 1996, and most notably top-level talks in December 1999 - January 2000 under the brokerage of then-US President Bill Clinton. The talks collapsed, with the extent of withdrawal being the stumbling block: the Syrians insisted on a complete withdrawal, while Israel sought border adjustments that would ensure its sole control of the Sea of Galilee.

This point is important when pro-Israel lobbyists say Syria rejected the return of almost all the Golan Heights, as the small area Israel wanted to keep is extremely valuable, given the region's (including Syria's) lack of water and the fact that Syria had access to the Sea of Galilee prior to Israel's conquests in 1967.

Prospects for Israeli-Syrian peace

In late 2003, Syrian President Bashar Assad said he was ready to revive peace talks with Israel.

In 2004, the ruling Ba'ath Party deleted an article stating there could be no peace or negotiations with the 'Zionist entity', replacing it with a call for the liberation of Arab land occupied in 1967.

Assad reiterated his call for talks in a September 2006 interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel: "We want to make peace - peace with Israel." He did so again in December 2006, saying: "Many voices are being raised in Israel" for dialogue with Damascus. "So I say to [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert: let him try, and see if we are bluffing."

Also in December, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told the Washington Post that his country is willing to resume negotiations without conditions, including on the Golan: "There is no precondition. A constructive dialogue has to start without preconditions. Our only goal is to get the return of Syrian occupied territories, to get Syrian regional stability."

On 19 June 2007, Mary Dejevsky - editorial writer and columnist for the Independent - wrote that Syria's ambassador to the UK said at a conference three days earlier that "Israel's existence is now a fact of life. A new generation of Israelis knows no other homeland; they have a right to live in peace and security. 'Seize the opportunity,' he said several times."

http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/mary_dejevsky/article2675746.ece

Israel, for its part, is resolute in its defiance. The current climate is far less conducive to settlement than it was under the leadership of Ehud Barak, a time when negotiations reached a stage in which Israeli negotiators "stated to the Syrians that Israel accepts the principle of withdrawal on the Golan Heights."

Barak was succeeded by Ariel Sharon, who vehemently and consistently opposed relinquishing the territory. For instance, he wrote a commentary in the New York Times on 28 December 1999 entitled 'Why should Israel reward Syria?', in which he stated that "there must be no rewards for the aggressor," and that "Israel must keep the Golan Heights."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,438804-2,00.html

http://www.security-policy.org/papers/2000/00-F1.html

Sharon's successor Olmert has continued this belligerent stance. "As long as I serve as prime minister the Golan Heights will remain in our hands because it is an integral part of the State of Israel," he was quoted as saying by Israeli newspapers.

On 17 and 18 December 2006, Olmert rejected Assad's calls for talks. "We do not have the impression that there is currently a basis for opening negotiations with Syria," he told a joint media conference after talks with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin told Agence France Presse: "It is difficult to take Syria's declarations seriously..."

On 7 December 2006, Olmert rejected the recommendation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group - comprising elder US statesmen and led by James Baker, secretary of state under George Bush senior, and former lawmaker Lee Hamilton - to talk to Syria and return the Golan Heights. Olmert said he had a "different view," and that "there is little chance to try and embark on negotiations with this country in the near future."

Hypocritically, however, he said he was willing to talk to Arab countries that supported the 2002 Saudi peace plan, which calls for full normalisation with and recognition of Israel in return for a full withdrawal from Arab land occupied in 1967 and a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees. Every member of the Arab League, including Syria, backed the peace plan, which Israel rejected.

Olmert described the ISG report as "very bad…from Israel's point of view," and that if adopted, "will be like an earthquake in the Middle East, but it is unlikely that this will happen."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6217656.stm

Furthermore, The Jerusalem Post on 21 August 2006 reported him saying: "I am the last person who will say I want to negotiate with Syria." He described the country as "the single most aggressive member of the axis of evil," and recommended "not getting carried away with any false hopes."

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also dismissed the idea of negotiations with Syria during talks she held with visiting UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, and separately with visiting Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Rudolf Bot.

On 16 December 2006, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres rejected Assad's calls for talks. A day later, so did Trade Minister Eli Yishai, describing them as a "trap" aimed at "whitewashing the terrorist beast."

Furthermore, Interior Minister Roni Bar-On on 6 December 2006 said Israelis should "come and live in the Golan Heights" to strengthen "the protective wall the international community and Israel have constructed against the axis of evil," which in his view runs through Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. "Whoever speaks of concessions in the Golan doesn't know what he's talking about."

Less than two weeks later, on 19 December, Bar-On said he intended to accelerate housing projects on settlements there. A leader of the Golan local council, Sami Bar-Lev, said the construction of 400 additional homes is under way in Katzrin, the largest Jewish settlement where about 7,500 people live.

In June 2007, George Bush and Olmert "dismissed Syrian proposals for negotiations with Israel."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/700fb8fa-1e8f-11dc-bc22-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=fc3334c0-2f7a-11da-8b51-00000e2511c8.html

However, there are some dovish voices. "We have to examine very seriously the Syrian overture made to us," said MP Ofir Pines-Paz on 16 December 2006. MP Danny Yatom, former head of the Mossad intelligence agency, said on the same day that Israel "must rise up to the peace challenge launched by Syria to avoid a superfluous war." A day later, Defense Minister Amir Peretz echoed the call to "examine" the Syrian overtures.

Avi Dichter, internal security minister and former head of Shin Bet (Israel's security agency), said in August 2006 that he would be willing to withdraw from the Golan Heights in return for peace with Syria, adding: "We have paid similar territorial concessions in the past when we signed peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt."

And in December 2006, an unnamed senior Israeli military official told his country's Maariv newspaper: "With respect to Syria, we've reached an impasse. Now is the right time to set a process in motion. The current situation with Syria is not good. It is important to do something different and there are conditions to do so. We've exhausted sitting on the fence. Something needs to be done. At the moment, the Syrians are deliberating over which direction to turn. With our current mode of activity we are pushing them into Iran's arms. On our side the Syrians meet a wall, and that is why they get repelled to the other side."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525914354&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Meanwhile, UN Security Council resolutions 471 and 476 reaffirm "the overriding necessity to end the prolonged occupation of Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967," including the Golan Heights. Those resolutions were passed in 1980, more than a quarter of a century ago, with no sign that Israel will abide by them anytime soon.

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/d744b47860e5c97e85256c40005d01d6/aa73b02d9b0d8fdc852560e50074cc33!OpenDocument

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/d744b47860e5c97e85256c40005d01d6/6de6da8a650b4c3b852560df00663826!OpenDocument

A useful portal with many aspects of the issues and concerns surrounding the Golan Heights can be found at:

http://meria.biu.ac.il/research-g/syria-israel-talks.html