Status of the Golan Heights
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Golan Heights are a rocky plateau in Western Asia that was captured by Israel from
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community recognizes the Golan Heights to be official Syrian territory and widely rejects Israeli military occupation. Following the war, Syria dismissed any negotiations with Israel as part of the
Khartoum Resolution The Khartoum Resolution of 1 September 1967 was issued at the conclusion of the 1967 Arab League summit, which was convened in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, in the wake of the Six-Day War. The resolution is famous for containing (in the third ...
. The Golan was under military administration until the Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law in 1981, which applied Israeli law to the territory; a move that has been described as an
annexation Annexation (Latin ''ad'', to, and ''nexus'', joining), in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. It is generally held to be an illegal act ...
. In response, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed UNSC Resolution 497 which condemned the Israeli actions to change the status of the territory declaring them "null and void and without international legal effect", and that the Golan remained an occupied territory. In 2019, the United States became the only state to recognize the Golan Heights as Israeli sovereign territory, while the rest of the international community continues to consider the territory Syrian held under Israeli military occupation.


British and French Mandates

Following World War I, portions of the former territory of the Ottoman Empire was split into several
League of Nations mandate A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administ ...
s under the control of one of the victorious Allied countries of the war. The
British Mandate for Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordan, both of which had been conceded by the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I in 1918. The manda ...
and the French Mandate for Syria were two such mandates, with the border finalized between the two in the Paulet–Newcombe Agreement. The border, drawn in 1923, was the first international border between Syria and Palestine and to date is the last, with the remaining boundaries since then having been a result of armistice agreements. The boundary placed the entirety of the
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...
, along with a ten meter wide strip on the eastern shore, within the British Mandate. The French Mandate ended in 1946 with the independence of the Republic of Syria, and Syria demanded changes to the border to allow for greater access to fresh water sources, demands the British refused on the basis that the border had been submitted and approved to the League of Nations and Britain thus considered the matter closed.


Post-mandate period

The
1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
, which followed
Israel's declaration of independence The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ( he, הכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 ( 5 Iyar 5708) by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive ...
, resulted in the newly formed state of Israel in control over roughly 77% of what had been the territory of the British Mandate. Syria had however advanced to the eastern shoreline of the
Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...
, where the border as delineated by the British and the French was ten meters east of the shoreline. In the armistice negotiations that followed the declaration of a ceasefire, that ten meter strip was included in a demilitarized zone as Israel had argued for.


Six-Day War and aftermath

In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied the Syrian Golan. Following the war, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242, which called on Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in the war in exchange for the termination of all states of belligerency and recognition of Israel as a sovereign state by the Arab states. The
1973 Arab-Israeli War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...
saw further territorial gains by Israel, though Israel agreed to return to the 1967 ceasefire line in the 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria. Syria has continued to insist on the return of the Golan in any negotiated peace agreement between the two countries.


Golan Heights Law

On 14 December 1981 the Israeli Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law. While the law did not use the term annexation, it was considered to be an annexation by the Israeli opposition and international community.Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Golan Heights Law
The action was condemned internationally, and in response the United Nations Security Council passed
United Nations Security Council Resolution 497 United Nations Security Council resolution 497, adopted unanimously on 17 December 1981, declared that the Israeli Golan Heights Law, which effectively annexed the Golan Heights, is "null and void and without international legal effect" and fur ...
declaring the law "null and void and without international legal effect" and that the
Fourth Geneva Convention The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, more commonly referred to as the Fourth Geneva Convention and abbreviated as GCIV, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was adopted in Augus ...
continued to apply to the Golan as an occupied territory.


International views

The international community widely considers the Golan to be Syrian territory held under Israeli occupation. A number of states recognize the Israeli occupation as being legitimate under the United Nations Charter on a self-defense basis, but do not consider those concerns to allow for the annexation of territory seized by force. In March 2019, the United States, which previously considered the Golan Heights to be occupied, became the first country to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory it has held since 1967. The rest of the international community continues to view the territory as Syrian, held under Israeli occupation. The European Union members of the United Nations Security Council issued a joint statement condemning the US announcement and the UN Secretary-General
António Guterres António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres ( , ; born 30 April 1949) is a Portuguese politician and diplomat. Since 2017, he has served as secretary-general of the United Nations, the ninth person to hold this title. A member of the Portuguese Socia ...
issued a statement saying that the status of the Golan Heights had not changed. The
Arab League The Arab League ( ar, الجامعة العربية, ' ), formally the League of Arab States ( ar, جامعة الدول العربية, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world, which is located in Northern Africa, Western Africa, E ...
denounced the US move, declaring that  " Trump's recognition does not change the area's status."


See also

*
Borders of Israel The modern borders of Israel exist as the result both of past wars and of diplomatic agreements between the State of Israel and its neighbours as well as colonial powers. Only two of Israel's five total potential land borders are international ...
* Israeli-occupied territories * Israel–Syria relations


References

{{reflist Golan Heights