Washington Report, April 19, 1982, Page 4

Whatever Happened to Golan?

Despite U.S. approval last December of a United Nations resolution branding Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights illegal, Israel is still making it clear that it has no intention of going back on its decision.

In fact, for the past four months, the Israelis have been trying to implement their annexation move with a severity that rivals what happened during March in the nearby West Bank, where seven Palestinians died in clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers.

The immediate cause of the post-annexation troubles in Golan has been an Israeli attempt to require the 12,500 Syrian Druse residents of the heights, which were captured by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, to accept Israeli identity cards. The resistance to this requirement has resulted not only in a general strike that has been going on for about two months, but a 40-day Israeli blockade, lifted only on April 5, of the recalcitrant villages—the longest period of collective punishment that Israel has ever carried out on its occupied territories.

According to one of the few journalists allowed to visit the curfewed area—a reporter from the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz—barbed wire and roadblocks were set up surrounding the four Druse villages in the heights to prevent anyone from entering or leaving. Telephone service was cut while medical services and supplies were said to be inadequate as a result of the blockade. Fields, flocks and orchards were forced to go unattended. And in demonstrations before the blockade was lifted four Druse and three Israeli soldiers were injured.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, where Israeli authorities have been moving towards de facto annexation (see The Washington Report, April 5, 1982), new rioting broke out after an Israeli killed two Arab worshippers and wounded seven in Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock mosque. Arabs in other countries went on a one-day strike to protest the mosque attack and demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinians.