5 Golan Heights Facts You Didn’t Know

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.

Fact: The Golani Druze Have Complex Identities

The Golan Heights is home to approximately 45,000 people, among them around 23,000 Druze Arabs. The Druze are an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethno-religious group which originated as an offshoot of Ismaili Shiism, and is now a distinct faith. As a religious minority dispersed throughout the Middle East, the Druze have frequently experienced persecution, except in Lebanon and Israel, where Druze judges, parliamentarians, diplomats, and doctors occupy the highest echelons of society.

Most of the Druze residents of the Golan Heights consider themselves to be Syrians. Around 85% continue to decline the option of taking Israeli citizenship, preferring to hold Israeli permanent resident status. Instead of an Israeli passport, many Druze hold an Israeli-issued laissez-passer document for traveling abroad, on which the citizenship field is left empty or filled in as unclassifiable. Those Druze not in possession of Israeli citizenship nevertheless enjoy certain civil rights, including education, welfare, are protected by Israel’s national insurance, and are free to travel, study and work all over Israel.

The decision of the majority of the Druze to refuse Israeli citizenship and consider themselves Syrians is based on multiple considerations. With the Golan Heights Druze previously Syrian subjects, their affiliation to Syria is undeniably genuine and many truly regard themselves as Syrian. Far from banning the fostering of this Syrian identity, Israeli Druze students are permitted to cross the frontier and study in Syria. Officials from the IDF along with UNDOF and the Ministry of Defense coordinate their crossing and return from Syria.

But even those who are more open to considering themselves Israeli are cautious to openly express such sentiment given that for many years Israel never clearly stated its intent to retain control of the region. Beyond this, the reluctance to accept Israeli citizenship and continue calling themselves Syrian is a pragmatic decision borne of the understanding that if the Golan Heights were to ever again come under Syrian control, those Druze calling themselves Israeli would be regarded as traitors and potentially severely punished.

Similarly, with many of the Druze population in the Golan Heights having family members in Syria, they are fearful of repercussions extending to relatives with the “defection” of a relative in Israel potentially having dire consequences. As the Alma Research Center explains, “The Druze community knows that obtaining Israeli citizenship and publicly expressing loyalty to Israel isn’t dangerous just for them; it also puts their relatives living across the border in Syria at risk.”

Another important factor is the tribal nature of the Druze community, who look to their elders and religious figures for leadership. In such closed communities, social norms are strongly policed, and those deviating from the straight and narrow are at risk of excommunication.

Related Reading: Golan Heights: The History, Present and Future Explained

With Israel willing to overlook the Druze unwillingness to publicly embrace Israeli sovereignty while Syria exhibits a less understanding attitude, the outcome for many is a foregone conclusion.

Despite the prevalence of non-citizenship, in recent years there has been talk of the Druze seeking greater political expression in Israel. Since 1981, the Golan’s four Druze villages have been served by representatives, but an understanding that the territory will not be returned to Syria in the foreseeable future, together with the aspirations of the younger generations to seek out greater economic opportunities has led some to advocate for greater cooperation within Israel’s political system. This paved the way for the first-ever Israeli municipal elections in the villages in October 2018, although turnout was markedly lower than the rest of the country.

Fact: Jewish History in The Golan Heights Goes Back Many Centuries

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.

One particularly shocking episode at the clifftop town of Gamla closely resembled a legendary final act of Jewish resistance at Masada when the besieged Jewish communities committed mass suicide rather than surrender to the Roman Empire. When the Gamla fortifications were breached in 67 C.E., the entire Jewish community is said to have died; around half of them killed by the Romans, and the other half by jumping off the steep climbs to certain death. The ruins of a synagogue there, apparently built at the beginning of the first century CE, are of one of the first synagogues in the world to be built while the Temple was still standing.

Even after Jewish autonomy came to an end, Jewish life in the Golan continued. The remains of over 30 ancient synagogues have been discovered, ritual bathing facilities have been found, and beautiful mosaic floors with Jewish symbols have been discovered, all pointing to a sustained Jewish presence. The Jewish presence in the Golan came to an end in the 7th century when the Jewish communities of the Golan wiped out by Islamic invaders conquering the land from the Assyrians for the burgeoning Rashidun Caliphate. It was only centuries later that Jews were able to return to the land.

Under Ottoman control, Jews attempted to return to the area, with a number of plots of land bought by Jews from Safed and Tiberias from Bedouins and by Baron Edmund de Rothschild. Farms and homesteads were established, although these didn’t last for long when the Ottomans seized the land.  in 1920, Arab rioting forced the Jewish communities of the Golan to flee, and three years after that, in 1923, Britain and France came to an agreement in which the Golan was transferred to French territory in present-day Syria, in return for Mosul in Iraq coming under British control. The last remaining Jews were evicted by Syria in 1947 ahead of Israel’s independence. The land remained largely free of Jews until 1967.

Related Reading: Golan Heights: A Brief History

As of the time of publishing this article, the Golan Heights is the place with highest concentration of ancient synagogues in Israel, with 28 ancient structures dated to the Second Temple period and the centuries afterwards.

Fact: 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.

Between 1950 and 1967, approximately 370 Israelis were hit by Syrian fire, with 121 killed. In 1955 alone, there were exchanges of fire on 52 days. The first three months of 1967 saw over 270 border ‘incidents’ in Israel. The majority of these emanated from Syria, and caused rising concern in Israel.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir described the dire situation of Israelis living in the crosshairs of the Syrians up on the Golan Heights.

“The Syrians seemed bent on an escalation of the conflict; they kept up an endless bombardment of the Israeli settlements below the Golan Heights, and Israeli fishermen and farmers faced what was sometimes virtually daily attacks by snipers. I used to visit those settlements occasionally and watch the settlers go about their work as though there was nothing at all unusual in ploughing with a military escort or putting children to sleep – every single night – in underground air-raid shelters” (My Life by Golda Meir).

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.

Even after Assad’s recovery in the Syrian civil war following the earlier fall of great swathes of Syria to ISIS and other rebel groups, Israel remains on the lookout for signs of the territory adjacent to the armistice line being used as a staging ground for attacks on the Golan and northern Israel. Hezbollah, the Iranian-funded terror group boasting thousands of soldiers and high-tech weaponry, has worked to gain sway with Syrians in the area near the frontier, and Israel is vigilant for developments.

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.

Fact: A Special UN Force is Posted Along the Israel-Syria Border

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.

After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in March 2011, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad lost control of great swathes of the country. Over the following eight years, Assad fought to reassert dominance over the country, backed up by Iranian and Russian forces. During this period, areas inside and adjacent to the UNDOF force’s patrol zone came under rebel control. Due to their proximity to the fighting, UNDOF’s situation became increasingly precarious and in time the United Nations forces became a target for violence. Consequently, inspection patrols in the zone’s Area of Limitation ceased and, prompted by the kidnapping of some 45 Fijian UNDOF soldiers by an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group (the soldiers were subsequently released) and other attacks, the force abandoned most of its positions and withdrew to Israeli territory. For a period of five years, UNDOF forces observed events in Syria from the safety of Israeli-controlled land. As the civil war in Syria has drawn to an end, UNDOF soldiers have returned to the Syrian side of the line.

With hostilities crossing over the border, as the Israeli air force regularly attacks terror groups located on the Syrian side, and the Israeli side periodically coming under fire and other threats, the Golan Heights is set to remain under Israeli control for the foreseeable future. As long as Israel remains in control without having signed a peace agreement with Syria, it’s safe to assume that the UNDOF force will stay in place.

Fact: There’s a Syrian Village in the Israeli Golan Heights That Might Be in Lebanese Territory

Ghajar is a village with a split-identity. Depending who you ask, the Blue Line which constitutes the border between Israel and Lebanon might be behind it, in front of it, or possibly even running through the village. The small village, located at a strategic corner where the boundaries between Israel, Syria and Lebanon meet, has changed hands three times in the last century. It might yet do so again.

The inhabitants of the village are Alawites and Israeli citizens, but see themselves as loyal to Syria, whose leader Bashar Al-Assad is also an Alawite.

Until 2006, the village was divided with one half in Israel, and one half in Lebanon. Earlier, in November 2005, Hezbollah launched an assault on the village, firing mortars and Katyusha rockets on IDF positions and civilian houses.  When war broke out between Israel and Lebanon in the summer of 2006, Hezbollah took over the northern part of the village and used it as a base to fire missiles into Israel. Israel consequently invaded north Ghajar and reunited the village after driving Hezbollah out. In 2010, the Israeli government’s security cabinet accepted a proposal by the United Nations to pull out Israeli forces from that part of the village, although pressure from the residents who wanted the village to remain united halted the plans.

Related Reading: Golan Heights: The History, Present and Future Explained

Today, the entrance to the village is closed by an Israeli border police checkpoint which only allows in residents, UN officials, and those with a formal invitation from a resident and security clearance from the army.

Bonus Fact: Landmines Still Pose a Significant Threat to Residents of the Golan Heights

Another legacy of the war is the threat posed by landmines. On both the Syrian-controlled Golan as well as the Golan Heights, an unknown number of landmines, thought to be in the hundreds or thousands, have been left behind by the Syrian military. According to journalist Moshe Gilad, “More than a million old and rusty mines, the overwhelming majority of them Syrian, are estimated to be buried on the Heights.”

With numerous fields marked as no-go-zones due to landmines, the growth of some Israeli villages  is restricted. Hundreds of landmines have exploded on the Syrian and Israeli sides of the Golan since the end of the war, leaving people injured and killed on the both sides.

Despite the Israeli government setting up a civilian body to oversee the safe removal of the life-threatening munitions which has gone on to find and safely detonate hundreds of landmines, the location of many thousands more is unknown as floods and snow carry the devices great distances over the hilly terrain. On more than one occasion, territory has been marked as clear of landmines, only for the explosives to end up inside previously “sterile” zones.

Enjoyed reading this article? Please consider sharing via social media or emailing it to your friends!