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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/as-israel-plots-endgame-in-occupied-golan-bennett-must-remember-lessons-of-the-past/">palestinechronicle.com</a>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">As Israel Plots Endgame in Occupied Golan, Bennett Must Remember Lessons of the Past</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">January 5, 2022<br></div>
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<img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Gvernment-Golan-678x455.png" alt="" title="Gvernment-Golan" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="427" height="287">
Israeli Government approves a plan
to double the number of illegal Jewish settlers in the Golan Heights.
(Photo: via Prime Minister of Israel Twitter page)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud" title="Display all articles for Ramzy Baroud">Ramzy Baroud</a></strong></p><p>With
Syria still embroiled in its own war, Israel has been actively
rewriting the rule book regarding its conduct in this Arab country. Gone
are the days of a potential return of the illegally occupied Golan
Heights to Syrian sovereignty in exchange for peace, per the language of
yesteryears. Now, Israel is set to double its illegal Jewish settler
population in the Golan, while Israeli bombs continue to drop with a
much higher frequency on various Syrian targets.</p>
<p>Indeed, a one-sided war is underway, casually reported as if a
routine, everyday event. In the last decade, many ‘mysterious’ attacks
on Syria were <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59561148">attributed</a> to Israel. The latter neither confirmed nor denied. With the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-idUSKCN1R61S6">blanket support</a>
given to Israel by the Donald Trump administration, which recognized
Israel’s illegal annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights of 1981, Israeli
reluctance to take credit for the frequent and increasingly destructive
and bloody air raids has <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/9/5/israel-says-it-launched-200-strikes-in-syria-since-2017">dissipated</a>.</p>
<p>Briefly, some in the Israeli government were <a href="https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/09/03/a-biden-administration-and-the-potential-dangers-to-israel/">concerned</a>
by the possible repercussions of the advent of Joe Biden to the White
House in January 2021. They worried that the new president might reverse
some of the pro-Israel decisions enacted by his predecessor, including
the<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/trump-officially-recognized-israels-annexation-of-golan-heights.html"> recognition</a>
of the “Sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” due to the “strategic and
security importance to the State of Israel”. Biden, a long-time
supporter of Israel himself, did no such thing.</p>
<p>The initial concern about a shift in US policy turned into euphoria
and, eventually, an opportunity, especially as Israel’s new Prime
Minister, Naftali Bennett, is eager to break the Right’s historic
dominance over the Jewish settlement movement in occupied Palestinian
and Arab lands.</p>
<p>“This is our moment. This is the moment of the Golan Heights,” Bennett<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israel-plans-double-settlement-occupied-golan-heights-81943620"> declared</a>
triumphantly at an Israeli government cabinet meeting held specially to
officiate plans regarding the further colonization of the Golan on
December 26.</p>
<p>The following statement by Bennett speaks volumes about the context
of the Israeli decision, and its future intentions: “After long and
static years in terms of the scope of settlement, our goal today is to
double settlement in the Golan Heights.” The reference to ‘static years’
is an outright rejection of the occasional freezing of settlement
construction that mostly took place during the so-called ‘peace
process.’ Bennett – who, in June 2021,<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/13/1005724415/netanyahu-is-out-naftali-bennett-will-be-installed-as-israels-new-prime-minister"> was embraced</a>
by Washington and its western allies as the political antithesis to the
obstinate Benjamin Netanyahu – has effectively ended any possibility of
a peaceful resolution to Israel’s illegal occupation of the Golan.</p>
<p>Aside from predictable and clichéd responses by Syria and the Arab
League, Israel’s massive push to double its settlement activities in the
Golan is going largely unnoticed. Not only Israel’s right-wing media,
but the likes of Haaretz are also welcoming the government’s investment –
estimated at nearly $320 million. The title of David Rosenberg’s
article in Haaretz tells the whole story: “Picturesque but Poor,
Israel’s Golan Needs a Government Boost to Thrive.”<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-picturesque-but-poor-the-golan-badly-needs-a-government-boost-1.10503865"> The article</a>
decries government ‘neglect’ of the Golan, speaks of employment
opportunities and merely challenges Bennett’s government on whether it
will “stay the course”. The fact that the occupation of the Golan, like
that of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, is illegal under
international law is absent from Israeli media coverage.</p>
<p>Namely, Israel’s main focus currently is to normalize its occupation
of Arab land entirely. But if that mission has failed over the course of
54 years, can it succeed now?</p>
<p>For Israel, the illegal settlement enterprise, whether in the Syrian
Golan or in occupied Palestine, is synonymous. It is inspired by
deep-rooted ideological and religious beliefs, compelled by economic
opportunities and political interests and assuaged by the lack of any
meaningful international response.</p>
<p>In the case of the Golan, Israel’s intention was, from the onset, to
expand on its agricultural space, as the capture of the fertile Syrian
territory almost immediately attracted settlers, who set the stage for
massive agricultural settlements. Although the home of merely<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20211226-israel-approves-plan-to-double-settler-population-in-golan-heights"> 25,000 Jewish settlers</a>, the Golan became a<a href="https://www.winesofisrael.com/regions/"> major source</a>
of Israeli apples, pears and wine grape production. Local tourism in
the scenic Golan, dotted with numerous wineries, thrived, especially
following the Israeli annexation of the territory in 1981.</p>
<p>The plight of the steadfast Golan Arab Druze population of nearly<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20211226-israel-approves-plan-to-double-settler-population-in-golan-heights"> 23,000</a>
is as irrelevant in the eyes of Israel as that of the millions of
occupied Palestinians, whether under siege in Gaza or living under a
perpetual occupation or apartheid in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The Golan population is equally isolated and oppressed but, like the
Palestinians, continues to resist despite the heavy price of their
resistance. Their hardship, however, is likely to increase with the
expected doubling of the Jewish settler population.</p>
<p>Israel is, of course, aware that popular uprisings will eventually be
mounted in response to its latest colonial endeavors, but various
factors must be giving Bennett the confidence to continue with his
plans. A major source of reassurance is that it could take Syria years
to achieve any degree of political stabilization before mounting any
source of challenge to the Israeli occupation. Another is that the
Palestinian leadership is in no mood for confrontation, especially that
it is, once again, on<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/meeting-bidens-security-adviser-abbas-urges-closer-us-palestinian-ties/"> good terms</a> with Washington, which has resumed its funding of the PA soon after Biden’s inauguration.</p>
<p>Moreover, in Israel, the anti-settlement movement has long subsided,
crystallized mostly into smaller political parties that are hardly
critical in the formation or toppling of government coalitions.</p>
<p>More importantly, Washington has no interest to initiate any kind of
diplomatic efforts to lay the ground for future talks involving Israel,
the Palestinians and certainly not Syria. Any such attempt now, or even
in coming years would represent a political gamble for Biden’s embattled
administration.</p>
<p>Israel understands this absolutely and plans to take advantage of
this opportunity, arguably unprecedented since the Madrid talks over
thirty years ago. Yet, while Bennett is urging Israelis in their quest
for settlement expansion with such battle cries as “this is our moment’,
he must not underestimate that the occupied Palestinians and Syrians
are also aware that their ‘moment’, too, is drawing near. In fact, all
popular Palestinian uprisings of the past were initiated at times when
Israel assumed that it had the upper hand, and that people’s resistance
has been forever pacified.</p>
<div><p><br></p><p><span><i>R</i><em>amzy Baroud is </em><i>a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “</i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/These-Chains-Will-Broken-Palestinian/dp/1949762092"><i>These Chains Will Be Broken</i></a><i>:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons”
(Clarity Press). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at
the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is</i> <a href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net/"><i>www.ramzybaroud.net</i></a><i> </i></span></p></div>
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