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Palestine Deep Dive’s newest stay present titled, ‘The Golan Heights – Occupation & Annexation Underneath the Highlight’, addresses key questions regarding life within the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights at the moment.
Deep Dive’s Host, Mark Seddon, additionally a former Al Jazeera correspondent and former speechwriter for UN Secretary-Common Ban-ki Moon, speaks with Aram Abu Saleh, a Syrian author and activist born within the Golan Heights.
Saleh has been concerned within the Syrian political motion within the occupied Golan since she was 13-years-old and is a member of the Syrian Golan Youth motion.
She begins by reminding the viewers of the largely forgotten name for Syrians’ ‘proper of return’ to the Golan, simply as Palestinians demand close to their houses occupied and annexed by Israel:
“The Golan doesn’t solely [include] the Syrians who’re presently nonetheless residing within the Golan like myself and my household but in addition [includes] the Syrians who had been expelled and ethnically cleansed from the Golan within the occupation in 1967, which are actually roughly half 1,000,000 Syrians. You hear nobody speaking about their proper of return, their destroyed villages or what occurred in ’67.”
Emphasizing how a overwhelming majority of Syrians within the Golan had been expelled by Israel, Saleh describes the operation as Israel’s largest instance of ethnic cleaning, “even larger than the Palestinian Nakba”, with 130,000 Syrians residing within the territory earlier than 1967, however with solely 13,000 remaining thereafter.
Seddon is eager to show the duplicity of many Western nations of their self-declared dedication to upholding the “rules-based” worldwide order:
“After all, we now have centered on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, what’s it meant for the UN Constitution, but in addition how it’s which you could name fairly fortunately for sanctions towards Russia, however in lots of Western nations for those who name for sanctions towards Israel for illegally occupying the Golan Heights, or certainly any of the occupied Palestinian territories, you run right into a storm of criticism.”
The Golan Heights was occupied by Israel in 1967 throughout the Six Day Warfare, and formally annexed from Syria in 1981, an annexation which continues to at the present time regardless of UN Safety Council decision 497.
The Decision, adopted unanimously on 17 December 1981, declared that the Israeli Golan Heights Legislation, which successfully annexed the world, as “null and void and with out worldwide authorized impact” and calls on Israel to rescind its motion.
Demonstrating the tragic impact of Israel’s ethnic cleaning on the on a regular basis lives of locals there, Saleh describes how her household would head to Quneitra, dwelling of the “shouting hill”, to speak with family members who had been forcibly separated:
“It’s principally two hills, one on the Syrian facet and one on our facet. Our households would come at essential ceremonies within the yr, on Mom’s Day, on the Day of Syrian Independence, on Eid… we might simply use shouting as communication.”
Seddon recalled his personal recollections of visiting the identical spot with Al Jazeera, “Folks watching this, it’s not only a query of shouting over a big fence. There’s fairly a distance, isn’t there?”
Responding to a query on the duplicity of the worldwide group in its expressed outrage in the direction of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, with subsequent dire threats and sanctions, in stark distinction to the silence over the Golan, Saleh says:
“They really have sanctions on Syria, which is ravenous the Syrian individuals… Our nation is being sanctioned whereas the nation occupying us is simply freely doing no matter it desires.”
However relatively than name for sanctions towards Israel for its ongoing annexation of Syrian sovereign territory, in November 2020, Trump acknowledged the Golan Heights as Israel’s sovereign territory, the primary and solely nation to have finished so. A settlement, Trump Heights, is even being constructed there to honor his transfer which was heralded “a miracle” by Israel’s then Prime Minister Netanyahu.
And relatively than reverse the U.S. place held below Trump, Biden’s administration has as a substitute maintained it since coming to energy, with Secretary of State Blinken telling CNN in February 2021: “leaving apart the legalities of that query, as a sensible matter, the Golan is essential to Israel’s safety”.
But, for these native to the Golan, the notion of safety appears to be absent altogether. Saleh illuminates the many years of hardship endured there since Israel’s annexation, but in addition the willpower of Jawlani resistance:
“When Israel annexed the Golan, it tried to additionally pressure Israeli citizenship on the Syrians remaining there. There was an enormous strike which went on for six months in our communities, and the Israeli military truly sieged these 5 villages for six months and blocked meals and milk for the kids. On the finish, they gave up and we nonetheless refused to take the Israeli citizenship so we now have no proper of voting or of collaborating as an Israeli. On paper, we’re outlined as stateless… as a result of by Israeli regulation, in addition they forbid us to take or be lively Syrian residents.”
Asking whether or not Saleh considers Israeli practices within the Golan quantity to the crime of apartheid, a query which was not included within the scope of Amnesty’s latest report, she responds:
“After all, sure, I’d say that. It’s apparent in so many elements and particulars of life in extraordinarily basic items like electrical energy and water. It’s our personal water, and likewise that is the explanation that Israel desires to maintain the Golan, not solely due to its strategic place as a result of it’s principally their entire provide of water, their largest provide of water. They took our water and so they promote it to us 4 occasions extra. The settler buys it 4 occasions cheaper than what we purchase it. If that’s not apartheid, I don’t know what it’s.”
Saleh additionally shines a light-weight on the violence and trauma brought about from landmines which litter the territory:
“We now have lots of people shedding their fingers or their legs attributable to accidents with these mines that Israel nonetheless refuses to take away, sure.”
Regardless of the many years of injustice, Saleh leaves viewers with an evocative picture of what different life within the Golan may very well be like with real safety and liberation:
“A dream – my first picture is all of the Syrians coming again to their villages and the Golan being full of individuals once more identical to it was, as a result of it had quite a lot of communities. We had Bedouins, we had Sunni, Shia. Mainly, all the Syrian mosaic was within the Golan, so my dream is for it to be alive once more like that and never empty and stuffed with settlements. That’s what it might seem like.”
Watch the present in full to study extra about life on the bottom within the Golan Heights.
(Palestine Deep Dive)
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