Golan Heights

Members of the Syrian Druze community protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights, in Buq'ata, Golan Heights, March 30, 2019. (Basel Awidat/Flash90)

Clean energy, dirty dealing: Syrian Druze resist greenwashing of Golan occupation

An Israeli wind farm slated for construction on Syrian Druze agricultural land in the occupied Golan Heights has been met with profound resistance from residents.

By Ellie Stern February 6, 2020

Members of the Druze community in the Golan Heights protest the decision of President Donald Trump to recognize Israeli sovereignty in the territory, Majdal Shams, March 23, 2019. (Basel Awidat/Flash90)

Talk of Golan annexation leaves out those expelled from it

President Trump’s recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights has been widely celebrated by Israelis. But do those same Israelis know of the hundreds of thousands of people expelled from the territory during the 1967 war? By Tom Pessah The vast majority of Israelis are still unaware that over 130,000 residents of the Golan Heights were expelled from…

By +972 Magazine March 24, 2019

Angela Merkel faces down Donald Trump at the G7 Summit, June 9, 2018. (Jesco Denzel/German gov't)

The legitimacy of land grabs in the Trump era: From the Golan to Crimea

Trump’s administration needs to come to terms with the unacceptability of states snatching territory from other states through armed force and keeping it — no matter what rationale the historical context might provide. By Paul R. Pillar The main takeaway from the recent G-7 summit obviously is the striking damage to U.S.-allied relations from Donald…

By +972 Magazine June 12, 2018

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen with Israeli soldiers of the IDF Armored Corps during an army exercise in the Golan Heights, northern israel on October 15, 2013. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

The Syrian ceasefire in the Golan is good for Israel

Netanyahu called Trump and Putin’s ceasefire in Syria a ‘bad deal.’ But it could be the one thing that prevents Israel from being dragged into war — whether by miscalculation or military escalation. By Shemuel Meir The dramatic announcement by presidents Trump and Putin of a ceasefire in “south-west Syria” earlier this month was greeted…

By +972 Magazine July 20, 2017

Druze villagers threshing corn in Majdak Shams, Golan Heights, 1967. (Moshe Milner/GPO)

The Syrian refugees Israelis prefer to forget

As opposed to Palestinian refugees, the fate of the Syrians expelled from the Golan Heights by Israel in 1967 was covered up and hidden from public awareness. Even today, most Israelis believe the area was largely empty of Syrians, and anyone who may have been there fled voluntarily. By Irit Gal Among the Syrian refugees fleeing their burning country…

By Haokets July 18, 2017

A UN observer looks at a lookout point as smoke rising at a Syrian village near the Israeli-Syrian border in the Golan Heights during fights between the rebels and the Syrian army, June 25, 2017. (Basel Awidat/Flash90)

Israel inching closer to a war nobody wants

Increasingly hawkish rhetoric directed at Hezbollah, along with providing humanitarian aid to Syrian rebels, may lead Israel into a war no one wants. Israel’s interest is a stable Middle East, but it won’t happen without an end to the occupation. By Asher Kaufman At the annual Herzliya Conference last week, the head of the Israeli…

By +972 Magazine June 30, 2017

A Palestine man holds the key to his former home left behind in front of his house, Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, May 15, 2016. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Mapping the Palestinian villages erased and replaced with Jewish towns

A new map seeks to provide new information on the Palestinian cities, towns, and villages that were erased and replaced since the inception of the Zionist movement. By Tom Pessah Immigrants coming to Israel are unlikely to know the name “Mlabes,” but Israelis are more acquainted with it. After all, it is the name of a…

By +972 Magazine January 29, 2017

Ehud Barak speaks at Haaretz's Israel Conference for Peace at the David InterContinental hotel in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, July 8, 2014. (Flash90)

Don’t call it a comeback: Really, please don’t come back

Ehud Barak isn’t the ‘only hope’ to defeat Netanyahu. He is, however, the most dangerous prime minister Israel has ever had. It seems Ehud Barak is planning a return to politics: posters have appeared calling on him to “run” (where exactly is unclear), and now even Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy reluctantly voiced the opinion that…

By Dimi Reider September 8, 2016

The remnants of the mosque in the destroyed Golan Heights village of Sur'aman. (Natasha Roth)

Finding home in a new memory: A journey to the Golan

Maintaining a boundary between support, solidarity and an acknowledgment of Israel’s wrongdoing toward Palestinians without appropriating the memory is an ongoing and constant effort. In Mansura, I found something different. By Eitan Bronstein Aparicio For years, I have been acting in the realm of the political memory, the construction of memory, deconstructing and erecting myths. I…

By +972 Magazine June 4, 2016

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu observes military drill in the occupied Golan Heights, April 11, 2016. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Why Netanyahu is doubling down on the Golan Heights

In less than a week, the Israeli prime minister admitted to military action in Syria and declared to the world that Israel will never relinquish the Golan Heights, which it unilaterally annexed 35 years ago. By Shemuel Meir What led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wake up one fine day and declare, during a highly…

By +972 Magazine April 21, 2016

The minaret belonging to the ruined mosque of Sur'aman, a Circassian village that was destroyed following Israel's occupation of the Syrian Golan in 1967, April 1, 2016. (Aiman Abu Jable/Jawlan.org)

The silent occupation: Bringing pre-1967 Golan Heights back to life

With war raging over Israel’s border with Syria, it’s easy to forget that the Golan Heights — a buffer between the two countries — is occupied territory. But occupied it is, and the landscape bears witness to a history of violence and expulsion. “The sky fell to earth, the stars turned to stones…” — Elias…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland April 18, 2016

Yitzhak Rabin at Andrews Air Force Base, September 10, 1986. (U.S. Air Force photo)

Yitzhak Rabin never supported Palestinian statehood

For 20 years the Israeli Left has utilized selective memory to reinvent the late prime minister. In reality, Rabin only wanted to grant the Palestinians limited autonomy, a goal he achieved through the Oslo Accords. By Yakir Adelman Ahead of the 1992 elections in Israel there was a televised debate between Yitzhak Rabin and incumbent prime…

By +972 Magazine October 27, 2015

Israeli tanks are positioned along the Syrian border in the occupied Golan Heights, January 29, 2015. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

First, do no harm: Israel and the Druze in Syria

Some Druze in Israel are campaigning for intervention to save their kin on the Syrian side of the border, but the Druze in Syria reject the idea out of hand. Instead, they are demanding that Israel stop supporting the people threatening to massacre them. By Rabah Halabi ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra are fanatical religious movements…

By +972 Magazine June 22, 2015