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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows that Israel will never give up Golan Heights
By William Booth
Jerusalem: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has travelled to the occupied Golan Heights to declare that Israel will retain full control of the mountainous plateau forever and never return the strategic highlands to neighbouring Syria.
As talks on the future of Syria are underway in Geneva, Mr Netanyahu convened a symbolic meeting of his cabinet on a mountaintop in the Golan Heights on Sunday, which Israel seized from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, centre, poses with his ministers on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Sunday. Credit: AP
In a lead-up to the Geneva talks, representatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad signalled that they wanted the discussions to include a possible return of the Golan.
Mr Netanyahu was having none of it. "The time has come after 40 years for the international community to finally recognise that the Golan Heights will remain forever under Israeli sovereignty," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Sunday. Credit: AP
Whatever the outcome of the peace talks, he added, "the border will not change".
Israel essentially annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 when it extended Israeli civil law - versus military rule - to the territory.
The international community, including the US, has never recognised Israel's annexation of the Golan and views the plateau as Syrian territory occupied by Israel.
Mr Netanyahu said he spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday and asserted that the Golan Heights, as far as Israel was concerned, was not a bargaining chip in the Syria talks.
Mr Netanyahu with his ministers on the occupied Golan Heights. Credit: AP
Mr Netanyahu said he told Mr Kerry that Israel did not oppose the Syria peace effort, "on the condition that it does not come at the cost of Israeli security".
The prime minister said he wanted to see both Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters, who are allied with the Assad regime, and Islamic State militants, who are fighting government forces, out of Syria.
"I decided to hold this meeting on the Golan Heights to send a clear message," he said as he convened his cabinet meeting, the first held in the region. "The Golan Heights will always stay in Israeli hands. Israel will never leave the Golan Heights."
Many of the Druze people who lived in the area fled to Syria behind the retreating Syrian army, but a significant number stayed and continue to live in their villages in the highlands.
The civil war in Syria is visible to the naked eye from the Israeli side. Occasionally, mortar rounds and artillery shells land near Israeli farm towns.
An international force of peacekeepers, overseen by the United Nations, is deployed in a demilitarised zone between Syria and Israel.
Over the years, Israel has discussed returning the Golan Heights to Syria, but Israeli leaders now say there is no way they will return the land - given the chaos in Syria and the proliferation of Islamist militant groups in the country.
"For the 19 years that the Golan was under Syrian occupation, it served as a place for bunkers, barbed wires, mines and aggression - it was used for war," Mr Netanyahu said. "In the 49 years that the Golan is under Israeli control, it was used for agriculture, tourism, economic initiatives, building - it was used for peace."
According to the Israeli special forces website, the Golan Heights is commonly referred to as the "Eyes and Ears of Israel", since Mount Hermon features heavily fortified military posts with a vast complex of observation and electronic surveillance equipment.
"Overlooking Damascus, the Syrian capital, just 35 kilometres away, Mount Hermon provides Israel with a strategic early-warning advantage. It is also a constant reminder for Syria that Israel can easily range [sic] their capital city at will," the website says.
Washington Post, Fairfax Media