By Shamsher Bhangal, PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge

The rapid collapse of the al-Assad government in early December 2024 has thrown the future of the Golan Heights into question. Essentially none of the major rebel groups in Syria can be described as Israeli-friendly, with the exception of the Kurds. Indeed, the nom de guerre of the leader of the largest and most powerful of these groups – Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham – is itself a reference to the Golan (the ‘al-Julani’ of Abu Mohammad al-Julani essentially means ‘Golan’). The reasons for this are due to Arabic name attributions (nisba) and the fact that his family come from the Golan Heights. But the connotations are relevant nonetheless.

At the time of writing the Israeli military, perhaps in an acknowledgment of this new uncertainty, has sent the IDF into the buffer zone established in Syria in 1974 following the Yom Kippur War. It is thus an appropriate moment to review the history of the Golan Heights.

The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau situated in south-western Syria. As with many other regions in the Middle East, political ownership of the Golan has changed hands numerous times in ancient and modern history. The most recent of these occurred in 1967. Following the Six-Days War, the armistice line the Israeli government imposed with Syria put the Golan Heights under the former’s control. Israeli settlements immediately began to appear in the area. It is generally agreed that today there are more than 20,000 Israeli settlers in the Golan. All states, with the exception of the United States after 2019, agree with UN Security Council Resolution 497 that the settlements – and indeed the very claim to the territory – are a violation of international law.

Back to 1967. Syria remained intent on recapturing the territory by military means alone.  Damascus essentially rejected a policy of political settlement, seeing it as an unfit response to what it viewed as an illegal land-grab. These sentiments were expressed in ‘three no’s’ of the famous Khartoum Resolution of 1 September 1967 – ‘No peace with Israel, No negotiation with Israel, No recognition of Israel.’ Israeli historian Benny Morris claims that the Israeli government was willing to return the territory back to Damascus, but that the latter foolishly refused. Avi Shlaim, a fellow “new historian”, maintains a different position. He claims that the Khartoum Resolution did not fully rule out a diplomatic solution to the question of the Golan, and that it was Israeli intransigence just as much as anything else which remained an obstacle to a permanent settlement. Shlaim’s argument does seem more plausible – Arab negotiation with Israel was not totally out of the question, as the Camp David Accords were to demonstrate. At any rate, it is important to note that the Golan was not yet under direct Israeli legal jurisdiction – that only came later, following another war.

That was the Yom Kippur War, 1973. When the Arab states declared war on Israel, the chief aim of the Syrian government was to recapture the Golan. They were unsuccessful, and the 1974 ceasefire agreement left most of the Golan Heights under de factor Israeli control. The only real change was the creation of a buffer zone. This is the very buffer zone that the IDF would seize 50 years later, in December 2024.

The crucial year was 1981 when the Israeli Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law. This law amounted to a de facto annexation of the Golan. The Syrian government was outraged, and so too were many in the international community. The UN Security Council condemned the Golan Law, declaring in Resolution 497 that the ‘decision [of the Israeli Knesset] to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect’.

Then came the First Lebanon War, the first intifada, the Iran-Iraq war, and then 9/11. The question of the Golan appeared to have hit a stalemate. The focus had shifted elsewhere. However, this changed with the Arab Spring. The Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, did not bring huge fighting to the Golan. Battles between the Syrian Arab Army, and other groups, including ISIL, did take place not far from the Israeli line. Throughout the civil war the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) used its position on the heights to launch occasional strikes into Syria. But no significant offensive was ever launched by any of the main belligerents in the Syrian Civil War into the Golan.

In December 2017, US President Donald Trump declared that the US would formally recognise Jerusalem as the capital of the Israeli state. This was a highly contentious move and symbolised a major shift in US policy in the region. There were multiple political and historical influences at work which explain why this policy shift occurred. But it is important not to overlook President Trumps enduring desire to break with the status quo, incite controversy, and become the centre of international attention. In March 2019 President Trump then recognised the Golan Heights to be under the legitimate jurisdiction of the Israeli state. His administration cited the Golan Law of 1981, and in so doing adopted a policy position that few no others in the international community were sympathetic to. The UN Secretary General issued a statement saying that ‘the UN’s policy on Golan is reflected in the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and that policy has not changed’.

That brings us roughly to the present day. In December 2024, Israel took control of the buffer zone, on the justification of what they considered constituted the collapse of the 1974 ceasefire agreement with the (now deposed) Syrian government. This change of policy via-à-vis the buffer zone might give the Israeli government a freer hand in directing its policy in Syria in the future.

It is difficult to predict what might happen going forward, but the recent history of the Golan shows there are several important points to bear in mind. Firstly, that the 1981 Golan Law means that, regardless of what the international community thinks, the government of Israel believes its claims to sovereignty over the Golan are legitimate. They see the Golan as Israeli and are therefore unlikely to be willing to surrender it. Secondly, despite the US recognition of the Golan – minus the buffer zone – as Israeli territory in 2019, there has never been a corresponding official surrender of the claim on the Syrian side. The Syrian government has continually desired a return to the pre-1967 borders. Whatever the new government in Damascus looks like, it seems premature to think that the current situation of the Golan Heights will remain unchallenged.