LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING RECOGNITION OF ISRAELI SOVEREIGNTY OVER THE GOLAN HEIGHTS.

• Author: Rose, Gregory

I INTRODUCTION

We placed on Earth firm mountains, lest it should shake with them (Quran 21:31) Peace hath her victories No less renowned than war. (John Milton 1652) Let the mountains bring peace (Bible Psalm 72 v.3) Was the United States' recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights sound under international law? Eleven international legal considerations relating to Israeli annexation are analysed. The legal considerations here are bookended in the beginning by historical, natural resource, military and demographic contexts and at the end by a survey of strategic political, ethical and economic factors for or against recognition of Israeli sovereignty. The analysis finds that the Golan Heights are transitioning from a regime of lawful military occupation to Israel's de jure sovereign title. Eventually and in accord with their interests, other countries will likely formally recognise Israeli sovereignty.

II HISTORIC AND GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND

A brief evaluation of the relevant historic, geographic and strategic features of the Golan Heights indicates their continuing relevance to peace in the Middle East. Authority over the Golan Heights has long been shifting in regional power plays. In ancient history, the Golan Heights were controlled by various peoples: the Amorites (from about 2000 BCE), Israelites (1200 BCE) until depopulated by the Assyrian conquest (723 BCE) and revived under Judaea as part of the Persian, Greek Seleucid and then Roman empires (from 500 BCE). (3) The Hebrew biblical book of Deuteronomy refers to 'Golan in Bashan, of Manasseh' (an Israelite tribe). (4) The ruins of ancient and medieval Jewish villages in the Golan such as Gamla and Katzrin are currently archaeological parks there. During the Byzantine empire, the Christian Ghassanid kingdom ruled (250 CE) until medieval times, when the Golan Heights were conquered by Mohammedan forces (637 CE). (5) In Damascus, they established regional administrations that governed the Golan Heights for well over a millennium, until 1917, for a succession of broader caliphates in the Levant that were Arab, Kurdish or Turkic such as the Ummayad, Abassid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Ayubid, Mamluk and Ottoman caliphates. (6)

After Imperial Germany and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires fell in World War I, the 1920 San Remo Conference decided new administrative borders, among which the Golan Heights, in accordance with the 1920 British-French boundary agreement, (7) formed an area to be administered by Britain. A British Mandate to establish a Jewish homeland including that area was authorised by the then newly established League of Nations. (8) However, the Golan Heights were renegotiated by Britain to France in a land exchange in 1923 (9) and administered by France until they became part of independent Syria, which was decolonized by France in 1945. Syria controlled the Golan Heights as sovereign for 21 years from 1946 (when French troops left) until 1967. Israel has since controlled the Golan Heights as an occupying power.

Geographically, the Golan Heights is mostly a volcanic basalt plateau, where the peak of Mt Hermon rises to 2,814m. (10) Its area is 1,800 knr, of which Israel exercises control of the western two thirds, ie 1,200 [km.sup.2]. (11) The region's precipitation is higher than the regional average, and includes winter snow that supplies much of the Jordan River watershed and the freshwater of the Sea of Galilee. It provides 30% of Israel's freshwater. Israel and neighbouring Arab States agreed to a water-sharing scheme under the Eric Johnston plan in the early 1960s, sponsored by the USA. Nevertheless, the Arab League commenced construction works in 1965 to divert away the Hasbani and Banias rivers from the Jordan River headwaters to the Yarmouk River in the State of Jordan specifically to eliminate what was the majority of the Israeli water supply. Consequently, in 1967, Israeli military air strikes hit the diversion works. (12) This history demonstrates that the Golan Heights are a strategically important source of freshwater.

In the twenty-first century, the majority of the population of the Israeli-controlled western Golan Heights is predominantly Druze, numbering 27,000, who share the Golan Heights with 22,000 Jewish citizens of Israel, comprising a total regional population of almost 50,000. (13) The majority of other Arab and Muslim peoples fled the western Golan during and following the 1967 Arab-Israel war. The refugee numbers and circumstances are disputed but might be reckoned at about 50,000. (14) About 10% of Druze have chosen Israeli citizenship while others have applied for Israeli residence cards, social security benefits and travel rights. (15) The older generation tends to loyalty to Syrian Druze clans and Syria, while the younger generation inclines toward fellow Druze in Israel and are loyal to Israel. The Golan Druze gradual trend to take Israeli citizenship is growing together with prosperity, especially since 2011 when the Syrian civil war impacted Syrian Druze villages. (16)

The population of the Syrian western Golan Heights is difficult to assess since Syrian rebel groups took and then lost control there from 2012 to 2018, including the main town of Quneitra. (17) These groups included the Southern Front (Syrian Democratic Forces), Al Nusrah (Al Qaeda faction), Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade and Jaish Khalid ibn al Walid (ISIS factions). (18) From the second half of 2018, the Syrian government regained nominal control, dominated by Iran and Iranian proxies. (19) The violent turbulence, ongoing instability and continuing efforts to install offensive armaments in the Syrian western Golan Heights demonstrate their enduring importance to regional and international peace and stability, discussed in the following section.

Ill MILITARY STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE

The military strategic importance of the Golan Heights is fundamental to Israel's security. Syria is still technically at war with Israel. It initiated three military ventures to eliminate the Jewish State in 1948, 1967 and 1973. There are no formal diplomatic or economic Syrian-Israeli interconnections. Armistice lines were agreed in 1949. The Israeli area of occupation 1967-1973 followed the 1967 ceasefire liner. (20) From 1974, a demilitarized buffer zone was established, as discussed below.

The Golan Heights overlooks Israeli towns and villages southward and westward below them, providing dominating vantage points for surveillance and fortified positions for the launching of rockets and artillery into Israel below. A line of volcanic hills provides a natural line of defence for surveillance and fortification against attacks from Damascus in the north and east. (21) A clear geostrategic case can be made for the defensive military necessity of Israeli control of at least the slopes looking south and west into Israel, if not also for the territory up to and including the line of volcanic hills.

In the 1948 war against the establishment of Israel, Syria made use of the strategic advantages of the Golan Heights. Early in the war, Syria successfully advanced into and occupied two pockets of the former British Mandate along the low land south-east coast of the Sea of Galilee and east of the Jordan River. Under the armistice following the war, Syria withdrew its forces from these areas, which were demilitarised. (22) The Golan region above was then fortified by networks of Syrian bunkers, tunnels and artillery positions that also provided launching positions for artillery attacks and raids into Israel. (23) From 1949 to 1967, there were thousands of incidents of Syrian shelling of Israeli agricultural collective farms, called kibbutzim, on the lowlands below, including Almagor, Shamir, Ein Gev, Dagania, Sha'ar HaGolan, moshav Dishon and other areas in the Galilee. (24)

On 5 June, the first day of the 1967 June Six Day War, intensified Syrian military shelling of Israeli villages and military positions located on the lowlands below commenced, (25) augmented in the morning by 12 Syrian jet aircraft bombing Galilee collective farms. (26) Syria declared that it had attacked Israel. (27) In response, Israeli anti-aircraft guns shot down three of the aircraft (28) and that evening the Israeli air force attacked Syrian military airfields, destroying much of its air force on the ground. (29) Syrian shelling continued throughout the war and, on 9 June, the night of the fifth day, Israeli airplanes and ground forces advanced against Syrian positions on the Golan Heights. (30) The Syrian positions fell through combat often conducted hand to hand. Although Syria had declared a ceasefire hours before the Israeli counterattack, hostilities had not been suspended and the Israeli assault on the Golan Heights was clearly a defensive response. (31) A Soviet sponsored vote in the Security Council condemning Israeli aggression failed to achieve the necessary majority. (32)

The 1973 October War was launched by Syria and Egypt after several threats and feints that forced mobilisations and demobilisations of Israeli military reserves and caused Israeli strategic confusion. (33) Crafting the advantage of surprise, Syrian and Egypt launched the war on the Jewish Day of Atonement. Syria retook the Golan Heights and Syrian artillery advanced almost down to the plains of the Galilee but, after the initial surprise advance, Syrian artillery and infantry hesitated and were forced back, at the cost of heavy casualties among Israeli troops. Ultimately, in 1973, Israel gained further territory in the north eastern Golan Heights than in 1967, but drew back from those advance positions, and also from the area around Quneitra occupied in 1967, in favour of the establishment there of a demilitarized zone under United Nations supervision. (34) The line of Israeli control is colloquially called the 'purple line' on the western border of the demilitarized zone. (35)

Since 2018, the Iranian...