On the Golan Heights

We toured the Golan Heights, the sliver of strategically important Israeli-occupied Syrian territory. The experience is unique; I'll describe it as 'mili-tourism' -- the combination of organized tourism and active military operations on a hostile frontier. The picture of our son Eric posing with a group of Israeli soldiers gives a clue about the experience.

The heavily fortified frontier is hostile but oddly secure. When Israel first won the territory in 1967 virtually the entire local population fled (the only original inhabitants still around are a few Druze villagers).

Israel almost lost the territory in the last significant armed conflict -- the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Tourists are invited to pay a modest fee to see documentary films about that battle, where Israelis -- outnumbered 10 to one -- held on for three days before reserve reinforcements arrived. The Israelis were ill prepared for the war. The Syrians were armed with infa-red night vision; the Israelis had no night-fighting equipment or training (and of course the Syrians waged the battle overnight). As the fight raged, according to documentary film taken by an Israeli crew during the fight, the battle lines blurred and at one point Syrian and Israeli tankers were side-by side. Exhausted and desperately tired, an Israeli field commander told his superiors he would need to pull back -- his commander lied and said reinforcements would arrive in 15 minutes. They didn't, but that was long enough for the Syrians to pull back themselves. Later the commander reportedly said that he had learned when you are fighting to the limit (the Syrians, Israelis concede, fought bravely and effectively in 1973), if you think you are ready to give up, the other side is probably in the same shape, so just a little more determination can make the difference. This proved to be true in this situation.

Today, approximately 30,000 civilians live in the area. They have a thriving wine industry -- the vineyards located right on the frontier produce some of the world's best wine -- along with other agricultural industries including, oddly, beekeeping. (Our guide says beekeepers had trouble maintaining their hives elsewhere in Israel -- local thieves would steal the bees). Frankly, I was more afraid to open our van window for a live sample from the hooded beekeeper than standing at a forward Israeli position near the frontier.)

Now, the rights and complexity of the Syrian/Israeli conflict would fill several books. Tracing back to the 60s, the Syrians engaged in a water-diversion project that could, the Israelis claim, drained the Sea of Galilee. Israel bombed the Syrian dams. In the 1967 six-day war, Israel had no trouble scaling the heights. In 1973, after intially losing ground, the Israelis moved further inland to the point where they could shell Damascus, only accepting a cease-fire when -- their supply lines depleted -- they faced a new and fresh Iraqi army. In the disengagement agreement, Israel pulled back to the 67 lines, conceding as well a sliver of land that had housed the main Syrian settlement in the Golan. Syria rebuilt the town at another location; presumably holding the bombed out original community as a shrine of its own.

Syria has reportedly offered a land-for-peace deal with Israel; Israelis are rightfully skeptical; especially since Syria is actively supporting Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, (Hezbollah is defined as a terrorist organization by both the U.S. and Canada because it, in advocating Israel's destruction, uses suicide bombs on civilian targets) and is playing sovereignty games with a tiny sliver of land in the north called the Shebaa Farms. Recently both Syria and Israel reported they were beefing up their military presence in the Golan area and Israelis engaged in a major training exercise as we visited.

This makes the experience of ordering a fast food hamburger, purchasing some wine, and then touring a military bunker, one that I won't forget anytime soon.

The first kibbutz

We travelled today to the Jordanian/Golan Heights frontier -- and stopped at a Renault tank, left from Syria's greatest advance at the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Israeli defenders used primitive anti-tank weapons and Molotov cocktails to stop the tank -- the vanguard of the Syrian advance, near the entrance of Kibbutz Dagenia Aleph, which just happens to be Israel's first Kibbutz, the beginning of the movement that represents perhaps the only truly successful application of communist worker-based equality in the world.
Before heading into an immersion of political/geographical and social history (more later), we had a stop, on the Jordan River, at a recreation facility with rather crude imitation totem poles, and very real canoes. In a rather unsuccessful imitation of the Canadian frontier, Eric and I paddled down the Jordan River, not far from a facility that attracts thousands of Christian pilgrims each year, purportedly because the water is near where Jesus was baptized. (The true point of action for Jesus actually is several miles away, but Israel developed the facility when that part of the Jordan River was under Jordanian jurisdiction. Unfortunately, the devout Christians dipping their toes in the Jordan River and purchasing baptismal water at the site got an unexpected surprise -- a rather nasty brush fire. We left the scene just as the fire engine came racing down the road. I hate to think what a fundamentalist Christian might have thought as the very real black smoke and flames billowed near the purportedly holy site.
Anyways, after seeing fire and brimstone, and floating down the Jordan in a Canadian-style canoe (and stopping at a store specializing in Israeli dates) we headed to the frontier area on the Sea of Galilee, near Tiberius.
Here, history and geography, and the complex rules of international geopolitics and water really are obvious -- as is the unbelievable complexity of the story.
First, we have to look at the area's rather unique geography. The Sea of Galilee feeds the inlet of the Jordan River here -- several hundred feet below sea level. Syrians and Jordanians have been diverting water that would feed into the Sea of Gaililee and ultimately the Jordan River, resulting (says our guide) in the drying up of the Dead Sea. But there is something good in all of this -- the Jordanians, perhaps inefficiently, are using their water to irrigate their side of the Jordan River here, creating fertile and prosperous communities and making it so the Jordanians want nothing to do with 'terrorists' infiltrating the Israeli border (which abuts directly here -- the 'West Bank' is further south.)
Fair enough, but what about the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967, and Syria. Well, here the story gets really complex. First, our guide told us, when the British and French divided up the territories in the World War I era upon the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the borders marked for Palestine actually covered the entire Sea of Galilee and certain resort and other lands on the Syrian side of the frontier. When the U.N. passed the partition resolution in 1947, these lands were supposed to be transferred to Israel. But the Syrians captured much of the land, to the the point of that first Israeli Kibbutz (Kibbutz Degania Aleph), which Israel only reclaimed in 1967. (Israel also grabbed the entire Golan Heights area -- we'll visit that part of the world I think tomorrow or maybe Thursday).
As for Kibbutz, it survived good and hard times -- certainly until 1967 it was in dangerous territory, with frequent Syrian attacks (and a disused bunker to show the evidence). But the Kibbutz prospered, until the 1980s, when it was lured by its bank to borrow money (from the bank) to invest in bank stocks. Unfortunately, the late 1980s stock market crash was coupled with an attack of hyper inflation, and things fell apart. The Kibbutz movement, overall, faced bankruptcy. Kibbutz Dagenia Aleph survived, but only after some really hard years. It is fascinating to see that the Kibbutz survived war, hostility, and all kinds of problems, but almost failed because of 'capitalist greed'.
We could see the Galilee's fertility (from volcanic residue) first hand. They grow corn, cotton, bananas, grapes, figs, exotic herbs, pomegranates, lemons, dates, and dozens of other crops here. This area also has recorded some of the first Zionist Jewish settlements in the Ottoman era. The lands initially were bleak, swampy, malarial horror stories -- the settlers turned the lands into fertile communities.
So where does this leave me? I certainly won't forget my canoe ride with Eric; but ultimately I am reminded of this land's amazing complexity and intensity.