The Case for the Golan Heights

On Saturday, the Golan Heights came under global scrutiny when Hezbollah bombed a soccer field in the Druze village of Madjal Shams, killing 12 children.

This is an unspeakable tragedy. It is also a reminder of the terrible and worsening condition of Israel’s north, which has been under attack since Oct. 8. In January, a mother and son were crushed to death when Hezbollah fired an anti-tank missile into their home. In early July, a married couple were killed by a direct hit, leaving their three children parentless. And now this — 12 innocent lives stolen. 

There is an ongoing media campaign to obscure the nature of this conflict. The New York Times, reporting on the Majdal Shams strike, explained the context like this: “Since October, both sides have fired thousands of missiles across the Israel-Lebanon border, wrecking towns, killing hundreds, displacing hundreds of thousands and leading both to threaten to invade the other.”

This clumsy sentence is engineered to make it seem as though there is no clear aggressor here — just rockets flying in both directions — when in fact, everything that is happening in Israel’s north is a result of Hezbollah’s unprovoked attacks on Israel which started on Oct. 8 and continue through today.  

For anti-Zionist activists, this attack is extremely problematic. For one, it paints Israel not as Goliath, but as a small David being sniped at by three Iranian proxy armies as well as Iran itself. In addition to this, activists who have branded themselves as defenders of innocent children are now being put in the uncomfortable position of having to justify Hezbollah’s horrific attack on children. Complicating this further, the victims weren’t even Jewish, so they can’t be smeared as colonizers who deserve their fate.

The solution to this pickle has been to reframe the story — focusing on the Golan Heights as “occupied territory.” 

In 1967, when Israel was attacked by Egypt, Syria and Jordan for the second time in its short history, Israel managed to capture territory from all three. Israel traded the vast majority of this land in exchange for peace treaties, but Syria — adamant about not recognizing Israel — refused to negotiate any possible land-for-peace arrangement over the Golan Heights.

Eventually, Israel annexed the territory, a move that the international community condemned and continues to contest. 

According to the BBC, Hezbollah’s rocket landed not in Israel, but in the “Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.” CNN echoed this language while the New York Times softened it somewhat, calling the area “Israeli-controlled” rather than “Israeli-occupied.” 

The choice of American news outlets to describe the Golan in this way is somewhat baffling. America officially recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019 — a Trump policy which President Biden has not reversed. 

That said, as far as most of the world is concerned, including all major international bodies, the Golan Heights are indeed occupied. To say otherwise would be to compromise the rules-based international order according to which land is not to be acquired through force.

A nice sentiment, but unfortunately, Israel’s neighbors — who have spent nearly a century attempting to wipe the Jewish state off the map — don’t hold by it. 

This prim insistence on respecting sovereign borders only works when you are surrounded by countries that respect your sovereign borders. Israel is not.

One of the more depressing revelations of the current war is the extent to which the international community has been hijacked by actors who have no intention of playing by its rules. Hamas, which violates every rule of war as a matter of principle, has played the international community like a fiddle. They steal humanitarian aid; endanger civilians by not wearing uniforms; hide rockets in mosques, schools, and U.N. installations; and park whole battalions of fighters in humanitarian areas—all the while racking up diplomatic wins from the U.N. and the EU. The Hamas takeover of UNRWA—the U.N. agency tasked with providing services to Palestinian refugees — provides a particularly literal case-in-point of this dynamic.

One of the more depressing revelations of the current war is the extent to which the international community has been hijacked by actors who have no intention of playing by its rules. 

It is time for a radical change of course. Were Israel to somehow be persuaded to give up the Golan, this would be a terrible outcome on three levels. One, it would be suicidal for Israelis, who would have given an avowed enemy a diplomatic win and a nice launching pad. Two, it would be bad for the Druze, who would suddenly find themselves subject to a murderous dictator. Three, it would be bad for the rules-based international order, as it would constitute a reward for the illiberal, terrorist axis of resistance. 

If the international community actually wants to defend the lofty ideas of “human rights” and “international law,” they should instead join America in recognizing the Golan, sending a message to those who continue to violate Israel’s borders that they will no longer get a free pass.

Matthew Schultz is a Jewish Journal columnist and rabbinical student at Hebrew College. He is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (Tupelo, 2020) and lives in Boston and Jerusalem.