Golan Heights

The strategic plateau on Syria’s southwestern border, captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel extended its law there in 1981 — a move the international community considered annexation — and the United States recognised Israeli sovereignty in 2019. The Golan’s unresolved status was a central issue of Syrian foreign policy under both Assads.

The Golan Heights — a basalt plateau rising from the Sea of Galilee to Mount Hermon — was captured by Israel in the last days of the June 1967 war in a military advance that covered approximately 1,200 square kilometres. The pre-war Syrian-Israeli border had run along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, giving Syria the ability to shell Israeli communities below; the Heights gave Israel strategic depth and observation posts covering the Damascus plain. Syria attempted to recover the Golan in the October 1973 war, reaching within several kilometres of the Jordan River before Israeli counter-attacks pushed them back; the subsequent disengagement agreement of 1974 established a UN-monitored buffer zone that has, remarkably, remained stable through the Syrian civil war. Israel extended its law, jurisdiction, and administration to the Golan in 1981 — a de facto annexation condemned by UN Security Council Resolution 497. Negotiations toward a comprehensive peace between Israel and Syria were conducted intermittently under Rabin, Barak, and Netanyahu, all failing on the question of the exact location of the border relative to the June 4, 1967 line. President Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan in March 2019 — without precedent in American policy — removed the issue from active diplomatic negotiation. Assad’s fall in December 2024 led to Israeli military forces advancing beyond the 1974 buffer line.

The Golan represents the classic post-1967 settlement paradox: territory captured in a war of uncertain legality under international humanitarian law, populated partly by Israeli settlers, home to a Druze population that has navigated complex loyalties across four countries’ worth of political change, and of genuine military significance to both sides. The Israeli argument — that withdrawal to the pre-1967 line would leave the Sea of Galilee and northern Israel exposed to Syrian artillery — is strategically real, which is why successive Israeli governments were unwilling to accept full withdrawal as the condition for peace, even when peace seemed achievable. The Syrian argument — that the 1967 war was itself a consequence of Israeli provocation and that international law requires full withdrawal — is legally real, which is why successive Syrian governments were unwilling to accept partial withdrawal. Neither side was entirely wrong, which is why the issue remained unresolved for fifty years, and why the Trump recognition — which declared one side entirely right — resolved nothing while foreclosing the diplomatic space in which compromise might have been possible.