Jawlan

The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between disciplines: as a geological and biogeographical region, the term refers to a basaltic plateau bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon with Mount Hermon in the north and Wadi Raqqad in the east. As a geopolitical region, it refers to the border region captured from Syria by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967; the territory has been occupied by the latter since then and was subject to a de facto Israeli annexation in 1981. This region includes the western two-thirds of the geological Golan Heights and the Israeli-occupied part of Mount Hermon.

The earliest evidence of human habitation on the Golan dates to the Upper Paleolithic period. According to the Bible, an Amorite kingdom in Bashan was conquered by the Israelites during the reign of King Og., , , , , , Throughout the Biblical period, the Golan was "the focus of a power struggle between the kings of Israel and the Aramaeans who were based near modern-day Damascus." After Assyrian and Babylonian rule, the region came under the domination of Persia, following which Jews were freed from Babylonian captivity and allowed to return and resettle in the land.HaReuveni, Immanuel (1999). ''Lexicon of the Land of Israel'' (in Hebrew). Miskal – Yedioth Ahronoth Books and Chemed Books. pp. 662–663 .Vitto, Fanny, ''Ancient Synagogue at Rehov'', Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem 1974Michael Avi-Yonah (1979). ''The Holy Land – from the Persian to the Arab Conquests (536 B.C. to A.D. 640) A Historical Geography'', Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 170 The Itureans, an Arab or Aramaic people, settled in the area in the 2nd century BCE. In the 16th century, the Golan was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Within Ottoman Syria, the Golan was part of the Syria Vilayet. The area later became part of the French Mandate in Syria and the State of Damascus. When the mandate terminated in 1946, it became part of the newly independent Syrian Arab Republic. By the late-19th century, the Golan Heights was inhabited mostly by colonized peasants ('' fellaḥîn''), Bedouin Arabs, Druze, Turkmen, and Circassians.

Since the Six-Day War of 1967, the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights has been occupied and administered by Israel, whereas the eastern third remains under the control of Syria. Following the war, Syria dismissed any negotiations with Israel as part of the Khartoum Resolution at the 1967 Arab League summit. Construction of Israeli settlements began in the remainder of the territory held by Israel, which was under a military administration until the Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law in 1981, which applied Israeli law to the territory; the move has been described as an annexation. The Golan Heights Law was condemned by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 497, which stated 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", and Resolution 242, which emphasizes the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war". Israel maintains it has a right to retain the Golan, also citing the text of Resolution 242, which calls for "secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force".Y.Z Blum "Secure Boundaries and Middle East Peace in the Light of International Law and Practice" (1971) pages 24–46

After the onset of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, control of the Syrian-administered part of the Golan Heights was split between the state government and Syrian opposition forces, with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) maintaining a buffer zone in between to help implement the Israeli–Syrian ceasefire across the Purple Line. From 2012 to 2018, the eastern half of the Golan Heights became a scene of repeated battles between the Syrian Army, rebel factions of the Syrian opposition (including the United States-backed Southern Front) as well as various jihadist organizations such as al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-affiliated Khalid ibn al-Walid Army. In July 2018, the Syrian government regained full control over the eastern Golan Heights. On 25 March 2019, then-President of the United States Donald Trump proclaimed US recognition of the Golan Heights as a part of the State of Israel, making it the first country to do so. The 28 member states of the European Union declared in turn that they do not recognize Israeli sovereignty, and several experts on international law reiterated that the principle remains that land gained by either defensive or offensive wars cannot be legally annexed under international law.Noa Landau
Legal Experts Debunk Netanyahu’s Golan Heights Claim: Annexation Can’t Be Excused by Defensive War
, Haaretz, 31 March 2019Zachary Laub
'The Golan Heights: What’s at Stake With Trump’s Recognition,'
Council of Foreign Relations 28 March 2019Jon Stone
'EU member states unanimously reject Israel's sovereignty over Golan Heights, defying Trump and Netanyahu,'
The Independent 29 March 2019.

Etymology

In the Bible, ''Golan'' is mentioned as a city of refuge located in Bashan: , , . 19th-century authors interpreted the word ( he, גולן) as meaning "something ''surrounded'', hence a ''district''"."Ancient faiths embodied in ancient names: or, An attempt to trace the religious belief ... of certain nations", by Thomas Inman, 1872 History, page 551

The Greek name for the region is (). In the Mishna the name is similar to Aramaic language names for the region: , and .

The Arabic names are and ( ar, جولان) and are Arabized versions of the Canaanite and Hebrew name "Golan". Arab cartographers of the Byzantine period referred to the area as (, 'mountain'), though the region is a plateau.

The name ''Golan Heights'' was not used before the 19th century.

History

Early history

The Venus of Berekhat Ram, a pebble from the Lower Paleolithic era found in the Golan Heights, may have been carved by ''Homo erectus'' between 700,000 and 230,000 BCE.

In the third millennium BC, the Amorites inhabited the Golan, being part of the territories that Labaya, the Canaanite king of Shechem, annexed in the 14th century BCE, as stated in the Amarna Letters sent to Ancient Egypt.

After the Late Bronze Age collapse, the Golan was part of the newly formed kingdom of Geshur, until it was conquered by the Arameans in the 9th century BC. The Aramean state of Aram-Damascus extended over most of the Golan to the Sea of Galilee.

In the 8th century BCE, the Assyrians gained control of the area, followed by the Babylonian and the Achaemenid Empire. In the 5th century BCE, the Achaemenid Empire allowed the region to be resettled by returning Jewish exiles from the Babylonian Captivity, a fact that has been noted in the Mosaic of Rehob.

After the Assyrian period, about four centuries provide limited archaeological finds in the Golan.

Greek and Roman period

The Golan Heights, along with the rest of the region, came under the control of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, following the Battle of Issus. Following Alexander's death, the Golan came under the domination of the Macedonian general Seleucus and remained part of the Seleucid Empire for most of the next two centuries.

In the middle of the 2nd century BCE, Itureans moved into the Golan, occupying over one hundred locations in the region.

In the 1st century BCE, the region as far as Trachonitis, Batanea and Auranitis was put under the administrative control of Herod the Great by Augustus Caesar. In the Roman and Byzantine periods, the area was administered as part of Phoenicia Prima and Syria Palaestina, and finally Golan/Gaulanitis was included together with Peraea in Palaestina Secunda, after 218 AD. Ancient kingdom Bashan was incorporated into the province of Batanea.

Following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE, Augustus Caesar adjudicated that the Golan fell within the Tetrarchy of Herod's son, Herod Philip I. After Philip's death in 34 CE, the Romans absorbed the Golan into the province of Syria, but Caligula restored the territory to Herod's grandson Agrippa in 37. Following Agrippa's death in 44, the Romans again annexed the Golan to Syria, promptly to return it again when Claudius traded the Golan to Agrippa II, the son of Agrippa I, in 51 as part of a land swap.

Gamla, the capital of Jewish Galaunitis, would play a major role in the Jewish-Roman wars, and came to house the earliest known urban synagogue from the Hasmonean/Herodian realm.
Although nominally under Agrippa's control and not part of the province of Judaea, the Jewish communities of the Golan participated in the First Jewish-Roman War, only to fall to the Roman armies in its early stages. Gamla, a major Jewish stronghold in the Golan, was captured in 67 CE, with, according to Josephus, its inhabitants committing mass suicide, preferring it to crucifixion and slavery. Agrippa II contributed soldiers to the Roman war effort and attempted to negotiate an end to the revolt. In return for his loyalty, Rome allowed him to retain his kingdom but finally absorbed the Golan for good after his death in 100.

In about 250 CE, the Ghassanids, an Arab Christian tribe from Yemen, established a kingdom that encompassed southern Syria and the Transjordan, building their capital at Jabiyah.

According to current research, the political and economic recovery of the Land of Israel during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, towards the close of the 3rd and the early 4th century CE, is what led to the return of Jewish village life in the Golan. The ceramics and coins found during the excavations at various synagogue sites provide evidence of the re-settlement of Jewish settlements in the central Golan.

Byzantine period

Like the Herodians before them, the Ghassanids ruled as clients of Rome – this time, the Christianized Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantium; the Ghassanids were able to hold on to the Golan until the Sassanid invasion of 614. Following a brief restoration under the Emperor Heraclius, the Golan again fell, this time to the invading Arabs after the Battle of Yarmouk in 636.

During the same period, several synagogues were built in the Golan Heights. Currently, there are 25 locations where ancient synagogues or their remnants have been discovered. These are all located in the Golan's center. They were built from basalt stones, which are abundant in the Golan Heights, and were influenced by the synagogues of the Galilee but had its own distinctive characteristics. The extravagant synagogues were possibly the result of years of producing and selling olive oil.

Data from surveys and excavations combined show that the bulk of sites in the Golan were abandoned between the late sixth and early seventh century as a result of military incursions, the breakdown of law and order, and the economy brought on by the weakening of the Byzantine rule. Some settlements lasted till the end of the Umayyad era.

Early Muslim period

After the Battle of Yarmouk, Muawiyah I, a member of Muhammad's tribe, the Quraish, was appointed governor of Syria, including the Golan. Following the assassination of his cousin, the Caliph Uthman, Muawiya claimed the Caliphate for himself, initiating the Umayyad dynasty. Over the next few centuries, while remaining in Muslim hands, the Golan passed through many dynastic changes, falling first to the Abbasids, then to the Shi'ite Fatimids, then to the Seljuk Turks.

An earthquake devastated the Jewish village of Katzrin in 746 CE. Following it, there was a brief period of greatly diminished occupation during the Abbasid period (approximately 750-878). Jewish communities persisted at least into the Middle Ages in the towns of Fiq in the southern Golan and Nawa in Batanaea.

For many centuries nomadic tribes lived together with the sedentary population in the region. At times, the central government attempted to settle the nomads which would result in the establishment of permanent communities. When the power of the governing regime declined, as happened during the early Muslim period, nomadic trends increased and many of the rural agricultural villages were abandoned due to harassment from the Bedouins. They were not resettled until the second half of the 19th century.

Crusader/Ayyubid period

During the Crusades, the Heights represented an obstacle to the Crusader armies, who nevertheless held the strategically important town of Banias twice, in 1128–32 and 1140–64. After victories by Sultan Nur ad-Din Zangi, it was the Kurdish dynasty of the Ayyubids under Sultan Saladin who ruled the area. The Mongols swept through in 1259, but were driven off by the Mamluk commander and future sultan Qutuz at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.

The victory at Ain Jalut ensured Mamluk dominance of the region for the next 250 years.

Ottoman period

In the 16th century, the Ottoman Turks conquered Syria. During this time, the Golan formed part of the southern district of their empire. Some Druze communities were established in the Golan during the 17th and 18th centuries. The villages abandoned during previous periods due to raids by Bedouin tribes were not resettled until the second half of the 19th century. Ellenblum, R.br>Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
, Cambridge University Press, 2003. pg. 219-20. In 1868, the region was described as "almost entirely desolate." According to a travel handbook of the time, only 11 of 127 ancient towns and villages in the Golan were inhabited. As a result of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, there was a huge influx of refugees from the Caucasus into the empire. The Ottomans encouraged them to settle in southern Syria, particularly the Golan Heights, by granting them land with a 12-year tax exemption. In 1885, civil engineer and architect, Gottlieb Schumacher, conducted a survey of the entire Golan Heights on behalf of the German Society for the Exploration of the Holy Land, publishing his findings in a map and book entitled ''The Jaulân''.

Early Jewish settlement

In 1884, there were still open stretches of uncultivated land between villages in the lower Golan, but by the mid-1890s most was owned and cultivated. Some land had been purchased in the Golan and Hawran by Zionist associations based in Romania, Bulgaria, the United States and England, in the late 19th century and early 20th century.Kats, Yosef
The "business" of settlement: private entrepreneurship in the Jewish settlement of Palestine, 1900–1914
, Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1994. p. 20. . In 1880, Laurence Oliphant published ''Eretz ha-Gilad'' (The Land of Gilead), which described a plan for large-scale Jewish settlement in the Golan.

In the winter of 1885, members of the Old Yishuv in Safed formed the Beit Yehuda Society and purchased 15,000 dunams of land from the village of Ramthaniye in the central Golan.Separation of Trans-Jordan from Palestine, Yitzhak Gil-Har, The Jerusalem Cathedra, ed. Lee Levine, Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi and Wayne State University, Jerusalem, 1981, p.306 Due to financial hardships and the long wait for a ''kushan'' (Ottoman land deed) the village, Golan be-Bashan, was abandoned after a year.

Soon afterwards, the society regrouped and purchased 2,000 dunams of land from the village of Bir e-Shagum on the western slopes of the Golan. The village they established, Bnei Yehuda, existed until 1920.M. R. Fishbach, ''Jewish property claims against Arab countries'', Columbia University Press (2008), pp36-37. The last families left in the wake of the Passover riots of 1920. In 1944 the JNF bought the Bnei Yehuda lands from their Jewish owners, but a later attempt to establish Jewish ownership of the property in Bir e-Shagum through the courts was not successful.

Between 1891 and 1894, Baron Edmond James de Rothschild purchased around 150,000 Dunams of land in the Golan and the Hawran for Jewish settlement. Legal and political permits were secured and ownership of the land was registered in late 1894. The Jews also built a road stretching from Lake Hula to Muzayrib.

The Agudat Ahim society, whose headquarters were in Yekaterinoslav, Russia, acquired 100,000 dunams of land in several locations in the districts of Fiq and Daraa. A plant nursery was established and work began on farm buildings in Djillin.

A village called Tiferet Binyamin was established on lands purchased from Saham al-Jawlan by the Shavei Zion Association based in New York, but the project was abandoned after a year when the Turks issued an edict in 1896 evicting the 17 non-Turkish families. A later attempt to resettle the site with Syrian Jews who were Ottoman citizens also failed.

Between 1904 and 1908, a group of Crimean Jews settled near the Arab village of Al-Butayha in the Bethsaida Valley