People of occupied Golan affirm their Syrian Arab identity

Damascus, (ST) – Citizens of the occupied Syrian Golan affirmed that “the Golan was and will remain Arab and Syrian”. They renew since , the decision issued “40” years ago by the Israeli occupation to annex the occupied Syrian Golan, their adherence to their Syrian Arab identity and their continuation to confront all practices of the occupation until the liberation of the Golan and its complete return to the homeland.

 The decision issued by the occupation authorities on December 14, 1981 to annex the Golan went hand in hand with the occupation measures against the Golan and its people, which began since the early days of the occupation in 1967. 

These measures were represented by the escalation of expansionist and settlement practices in the Golan, forcibly displacing its people, bulldozing villages and towns, and establishing settlements, as the occupation authorities deliberately tried to isolate and besiege the villages of Majdal Shams, Masada, Beqatha, Ain Qinya and Ghajar in the occupied Golan, and prevented the people of those villages from communicating with their families in Syria.

From the first moment of the unlawful decision, our people in the Golan faced the arbitrary measures of the occupation and its decision, adhering to the “national document” they issued on the 25th of March of the same year, which affirmed that the occupied Golan is an integral part of Syria and that the Syrian Arab nationality is an attribute of the people of the Golan that does not disappear. 

The resistance of the people in the occupied Golan to the decision did not stop for a day and was first manifested by the announcement on February 14, 1982 of a comprehensive strike that lasted for six months, which led to complete paralysis in various areas of the occupied Golan.

The aggressive policies of the Israeli occupation never  stopped, the occupation authorities attacked the people of the Golan and their properties, and launched a massive arrest campaign against the elderly, young men and women, cut off water and electricity, prevented food supplies from reaching the people of the occupied villages, and imposed a siege that lasted for forty days.

Despite these continuous arbitrary practices, the determination of the people in the occupied Syrian Golan did not soften in resisting the occupier and its barbarism. They took a unified national stance in confronting it and their rejection of submission to the occupation and its racist measures. 

Today, the people in the occupied Golan continue to cling to their land, emphasizing their categorical rejection of the declaration of former US President Donald Trump in March 2019 regarding the Golan and the so-called “local council elections,” to which they responded by burning “election cards.” They stressed their affiliation to Syria and their adherence to the right and the Syrian land, as well as their refusal to establish wind turbines on an area of approximately six thousand dunums of the lands of the villages of Majdal Shams, Ein Qinya, Beqatha, Masada, and the settlement plans of the occupation represented in establishing “12,000” new units to double the number of settlers in the Golan and change the demographic situation in it. They affirmed their adherence to every speck of soil and their steadfastness in the face of the occupation’s attempts to forcibly displace them from it.

In a statement to SANA, a citizen of the Occupied Golan, Jad Al-Karim Nasser stressed that our people in the Golan are committed to their land and their Syrian Arab identity, and that they will continue to defend their land by facing the Israeli occupation to thwart all its Judaization plans until the liberation of the entire occupied Golan and its return to its homeland, Syria.

In turn, Marzouq Shaalan stressed that the Golan was and will remain Arab and Syrian, and that the sun of victory and the return of the Golan to Syria is near. 

Meanwhile, Syria constantly reiterates that the occupied Golan is an integral part of its territory, and that it is working to return every atom of its soil to the homeland by all available means, as it is an eternal right.

Syria also emphasizes its support for the people in the occupied Golan and their resistance to the Israeli occupation and their rejection of the policy of plundering lands and properties pursued by the occupation in the Golan, including establishing settlements on its lands with the aim of changing its demographic, geographical and legal nature.

Raghda Sawas