Benjamin Netanyahu wants to consolidate Israel's presence on the Golan Heights, occupied since 1967 and annexed in 1981. On December 15, the prime minister declared: "Strengthening the Golan Heights means strengthening the State of Israel, and this is particularly important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, to make it flourish and to settle there." As early as December 9, in an unprecedented move, the day after the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and when the Israeli army had just taken over the buffer zone set up in 1974 after the Yom Kippur war between Israeli- and Syrian-controlled territories, he claimed: "The Golan Heights will be part of the State of Israel for eternity."
"It's another way for Netanyahu to show his power, assert a victory narrative, and demonstrate the strategic importance of Israel's hold on the Golan," explained Mairav Zonszein, an analyst for the Israel-Palestine think tank International Crisis Group.
A basaltic plateau rising to an altitude of 1,000 meters, a water reserve in a water-stressed region, the Golan Heights were part of Syria when it gained independence from the French mandate in 1946. Israel seized two-thirds of it during the Six-Day War in 1967, and repelled the Syrian army offensive in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War. The Knesset (Israeli parliament) declared its annexation in 1981, a decision considered "null and void and without international legal effect" by UN Security Council Resolution 497, adopted unanimously the same year.
Buffer zone
Assuring strategic depth for the Israel State, it was considered a bargaining chip in a possible peace agreement with Syria by Netanyahu himself, first in the 1990s with president Hafez al-Assad, then with his son and successor Bashar in 2009-2011, according to the Israeli press. This was before abandoning the idea and asserting back in 2017 that "the Golan Heights would remain under Israeli sovereignty forever," on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War.
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