The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The people with the Golan? Don't be late | Israel Hayom

2023-06-09T12:43:05.934Z

Highlights: Only 30,56 Jews live in the Golan today, a poor settlement crop considering the 10 years since. Only about <>% of the Jewish population in Judea and Samaria or East Jerusalem. The Golan remains to this day sparsely populated; Missed settlement and Zionist potential. The attempt to maintain unity between them, the study suggests, led to paralysis and indecisiveness. The first settlers, most of them from the United Kibbutz movement, believed that they were the vanguard going ahead.


The Golan Heights has become one of the components of Israeliness, but only 30,<> Jews live there, a poor settlement crop • A new study explains what happened there in the early years • It can still be repaired


The early days of Kibbutz Merom Golan, the first settlement in the Golan Heights, are remarkably similar to the story of many of the outposts and settlements of our generation: boarding the land without permission to an abandoned Syrian camp immediately after the Six-Day War; A vague definition of the goal: "establishing a labor camp to collect Syrian cattle roaming the plateau"; Support with a wink and encouragement from key figures in the government, including Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, and only a month and a half later – a government decision approving the landing.

Not everyone in the ruling Labor Party was comfortable with settling in the Occupied Territories, but the Palmach's politruk, Benny Marshak, later explained that the settlement enterprise was a desirable entanglement: "Settlement in the territories does complicate us, just as the root complicates the tree. The more it twists and the deeper, the more indetachable it is. A settlement is a root."

The first settlers in the Golan, most of them from the United Kibbutz movement, believed that they were the vanguard going ahead of the large camp of the labor movement, but the Golan remains to this day sparsely populated; Missed settlement and Zionist potential. Uri Hytner, a member of Kibbutz Ortal and a researcher of settlement in the Golan, now identifies in his new book "Don't Be Late for a Longed-For Moment" (Mendeli Mocher Books Online) the first two years after the war as the swan song of the ideological Labor Party. "The beginning of the decline of the fulfilling and settling labor movement, which preceded its decline as a political party."

What is the connection between today's "Labor" and Yigal Allon, who explained that "the purpose of the settlement is to penetrate deeper into the inner regions of the country," to "transfer vital points of the land from foreign ownership to the ownership of the Jewish people..."?

Only 30,56 Jews live in the Golan today, a poor settlement crop considering the 10 years since; Only about <>% of the Jewish population in Judea and Samaria or East Jerusalem. Even if we treat the Golan as a periphery, the growth rate of cities such as Nahariya or Eilat is many times higher. Hytner sadly testifies that his book, which deals with the first two years after the war, tells a story of failure: "The picture that the study has set before my eyes is of a huge, dramatic gap between the self-consciousness of the labor movement, as a fulfilling movement, and its ability to carry out its vision."

No one gets up

Even Yehuda Harel, 88, "the father of Israeli settlement in the Golan," follows in Hytner's footsteps. In the recent magazine "Friday in the Golan", Harel published an article titled "Requiem" (psalm of mourning for the dead, N.S.) where he calls the story of the rise and fall of the Zionist labor movement a tragedy. Harel is impressed by the study that the United Kibbutz, his and Hytner's original movement, did indeed have a great past of pioneering in the Diaspora and in Israel, but "when she was already middle-aged, and called out in a loud voice: 'Don't be late for a longing moment!!!,' the voice echoed in a vacuum, and no one got up..."

This seems to be some exaggeration. After all, there were those who got up! Yitzhak Tabenkin spurred with all his might, but his movement, the United Kibbutz, did not have divisions like Gush Emunim had in the Judea and Samaria sector. A third of the Jewish settlements in the Golan, Hytner himself notes, were founded then, during the first two years of his research, "and the one who accelerated and promoted and pushed was Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who few in today's Golan know how much the settlement there owes him."

Golan Heights. Unrealized opportunity, photo: Oren Ben Hakon

Even the young kibbutzim of Mapam from the Hashomer Hatzair movement, especially in the northern valleys, supported the settlement, but their townspeople saw it as an affront to the values of peace. The attempt to maintain unity between them, the study suggests, led to paralysis and indecisiveness. At first, Hashomer Hatzair established Snir in Ramat Banias, explaining that it was Israeli sovereign territory that the Syrians had taken over. Later, the settlement of Geshur was established, and the formula "our settlements will not be an obstacle to peace" was invented, and finally Kibbutz Natur was also established.

Since then, 34 settlements have been established in the Golan, but unlike Judea and Samaria or Jerusalem, no critical and irreversible settlement mass has been created in the Golan to date. The one who bothered, somewhat sourly, to remind us of this was US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who made it clear that the question of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights is still open. It was actually Bennett's government that took matters to heart, announced a multiplier operation for the Jewish population in the Golan, and began promoting building plans there.

It should be emphasized that the Golan Heights has long since become part of the Israeliness component of most of us, mainly because of its landscapes and tourism and leisure enterprises and agriculture and history. But unless a massive settlement of hundreds of thousands of residents is planted there – one that eliminates any talk of handing it over to Syria "when conditions change" – the Blinken twins at the State Department will not come off our necks.

From Work to Lost

Today's Labor Party has nothing to expect in the field of settlement, neither Merav Michaeli nor its potential successors. In the late days of the "Government of Change", the party led a line that sought to dry up parts of the settlements. Many localities in Judea and Samaria were omitted from the national priority map drawn at the time by party secretary general Eran Hermony.

Today's "work" bears no resemblance to its founding fathers, those who established a state here and built cities and villages and factories. What about her and Ben-Gurion, who saw Hebron as Jerusalem's sister and was not willing to give it up? What does it have to do with Yigal Allon, who explained that the settlement was intended to "transfer vital points in various parts of the country from foreign ownership to the ownership of the Jewish people... To penetrate deeper into the inner regions of the country..."? Thus. Straight to the point. Simple and true, in a way that makes it clear that the settlements of the Golan, Samaria and Binyamin such as Negba and Gush Etzion and Mishmar HaEmek, were established not only to provide security, but mainly to realize Jewish existence in the Land of Israel and shape the borders of the state.

Soon it will be the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, in which Defense Minister Dayan ordered the evacuation of the "30 children of the Golan" (there were more!), and since then much has changed there. In 1981, the Golan Heights was annexed to Israeli sovereignty, and a few years ago the Trump administration recognized Israeli sovereignty there. Along the way, it also turned out that "the people are with the Golan" when masses demonstrated broad public opposition to concessions there and to handing it over to Syria.

Nevertheless, as noted, Israel has not succeeded in establishing a large Jewish majority in an area that is so vital to state security and has no demographic problem, thus playing into the hands of anyone who sees the Golan as a temporary territorial deposit, both at home and abroad.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, who sails and exaggerates the importance of political symbols and charters, is not a classic settlement man. He was pushed into it only by virtue of coalition pressures and constraints, and at the same time it can be assumed that he also understands: only a significant strengthening of the settlement in the Golan, as the previous government began to move, will help us in times of heavy political pressure, which will come.

Most countries in the world regard the Golan as "occupied territory," but as long as an agreement with Syria is not on the agenda, their position is passive and does not seek to change the situation. It's a window of opportunity that won't last forever. And Netanyahu's fifth government still has diplomatic time and an opportunity to make amends. After that, it might be too late.

Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2023-06-09

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z
News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.