Following rapid deliberations, the Israeli Knesset issued on October 14, 1981 the Golan Heights Law which was signed by the then Israeli President Yitzhak Navon and PM Nenachem Begin and adopted by a majority of 62 votes against 21. In his address to the Knesset at the time, PM Nenachem Begin said: “..The Golan Heights were part of Palestine in the past. Those who demarcated the region during the First World War drew up arbitrary borders with Syria. The situation is being corrected now, as only the irrational would expect Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights…” The Israeli decision was greeted with staunch rejection by both the Syrian government and the UN Security Council, which emphasized that the forcible acquisition of property is inadmissible in accordance with the United Nations Charter and branded the Israeli decision as being null and void and without international legal effect.

The Golan Heights Law postulated that ‘’the law, jurisdiction and administration of the state of Israel shall apply to the Golan Heights.’’ The map annexed to the Law designated the region falling between the 1923 borders and the 1974 ceasefire line as being part of Israel’s northern governorate. The population present west of the 1974 line was estimated at the time at 40,000 people of which 20,000 were Druze and Alawite Arab natives who stayed in the towns of Majdal Shams, Mas’ade, Buq’ata, Ain Qanyi and Ghajar and 17,000 were Israelis who settled in the area after 1967.

Israel’s Practices in the Occupied Golan Heights

Israel’s decision to annex the Golan Heights aimed at promoting and expanding Jewish settlements in synchrony with the projected strategic objectives- military, economic and political- so as to lay hands on further Arab territories. The greed for this area is rooted in the great strategic significance it holds, for by merely standing on the Golan plateau, one may be able to observe, with the naked eye, the north-eastern part of occupied Palestine as well as the Syrian territories until the fringes of the capital, Damascus.

Israel strived to launch biblical and ideological campaigns aimed at emphasizing the Jewish historical ties with the Golan terrain and its surroundings. They replaced Arabic signs with signs in Hebrew and English and abolished all historic Arab monuments in the middle and the south of Golan, mainly in the towns of Quneitira and Fiq. Service and administrative centers were transformed into agricultural settlements and Israeli media endeavored to magnify the threats that the Golan would impose locally and internationally if handed back to Syria, let alone the security hazards it would pose to its own security.

Meticulous care was given to scholarly curricula and textbooks focused on extolling the virtues of Jewish history, leaving Arab and Islamic cultures in the shadows. Jewish holidays were adopted as official holidays and a full blockade was imposed on Syrian Arabs, cutting off their contact with their families in Syria. It is noteworthy that the Israeli authorities have also imposed Israeli nationalities on Syrian nationals in the occupied Golan, bargaining with them over matters that relate to their personal life and subsistence. Many inhabitants refused to obtain the nationality or to participate in any election of any kind, be it parliamentary or municipal.

The decision to annex the Golan Heights to the Zionist entity came in 1981 to exemplify yet another attempt of reinforcing the Zionist aspirations, which began in 1967 when the successive Israeli governments initiated expansionary policies, taking over agricultural areas and water resources and resorting to military settlement operations in a bid to strip the region of its Arab identity and historical legacy.