An Unanticipated Casus Belli

The ironies and implications of the Hezbollah attack on Majdal Shams

In one my favourite restaurants in the northern Golan Heights, Mas’ade’s Al Sultan, there’s an enlarged picture of Damascus, around 60 kilometers away. It reminds me of the fluid nature of boundaries in the Middle East, and that the Golan Druze primarily identify as Syrian. Over the past few years, though, this has begun to change, and Saturday’s horrendous rocket attack by Hezbollah on the football pitch in Majdal Shams, killing 12 children and teens, may mark the point of no return.

In 1967, when Israel conquered the Golan Heights, it expelled 130,000 inhabitants, leaving four Druze villages in the northern Golan standing: Mas’ade, Majdal Shams (the largest village), Buq’ata, and Ein Quniyye (there is also an Alawi village called Ghajar that straddles the Israeli-Lebanese border in the foothills of Mount Hermon). Known as Jawlanis (from the Arabic name for the Golan – al-Jawlan), today this community numbers around 30,000 people, while there are roughly 22,000 Jews living in the southern Golan.

Israel formally annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, having annexed East Jerusalem the previous year. Like the Palestinians in the capital, the Druze rejected formal citizenship but received permanent residency, meaning officially they received all the rights of citizens except the right to vote. At the time, their ties with Syria were strong. Young people often went to study at Damascus University, returning to form the new Jawlani middle class, while there was also cross-border trade and family unification. This relationship could be seen at the Shouting Hill, near Majdal Shams, close to the ceasefire line between Syria and Israel. Here, families would come to talk with their relatives across the border, using megaphones to get their message across. Today, with mobile phones, the hill is used only occasionally.

The Jawlanis mark Syrian Independence Day and protest in support of Bashar al-Assad. Football clubs in the area are known as Nahda (renaissance), Hurriya (freedom), Tali’a (vanguard), Amal (hope), and Qasyun (a hill close to Damascus) – all Syrian-themed names. In 2015, Druze in the Golan attacked ambulances carrying wounded Syrian fighters into Israel for treatment, thinking they were helping opposition fighters who had been attacking Druze villages over the border.

In 1981, the Jawlanis held a six-month general strike protesting Israeli annexation of the Golan, and boycotted community members who acquired Israeli citizenship, but this opposition is now wavering. Only a few hundred attend the annual protest against the annexation, while more are applying to become Israelis (today around 12% have citizenship).

There hasn’t been a change in political participation, though. Since 1981, due to a boycott of local elections, Israel has appointed heads of local councils. In 2018, sensing change was afoot, council elections were held, but the turnout was still poor – as low as 1.5% in one village. Turnout for national elections is even smaller (which is understandable given a majority aren’t citizens), although interestingly Likud win a majority of votes in the area.

Other tensions remain. In recent years there has been a fierce campaign against the installation of a wind farm in the area by Energix, which had been fast tracked as a national priority project. In June 2023, the head of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Muafak Tarif, warned the government to stop the turbines or face “a reaction the country has hitherto not seen.” Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir was unfazed, saying: “The project will continue as usual. Governance is important to all of us. The State of Israel will not bow down to those who throw Molotov cocktails.” Despite the bluster, though, the project remains stuck.

None of this means hostility towards visiting Israeli Jews. During winter, Majdal Shams is a ski resort for those wishing to brave the elements on Mount Hermon, and it’s a lively place to visit all year round. When it’s not under the threat of war, the northern Golan is a great place for tourists, with plenty of places to eat and stay. And now, the Syrian Civil War seems to have irrevocably severed ties between the Jawlanis and their historic hinterland. As Yusri Hazran, a historian and senior lecturer at Shalem College, explains: “The collapse of the Syrian state and the devastation there forced the Golan Druze to choose the rational option: integrate into the Israeli sphere. It’s a practical integration. I can sum it up in four words: Recognizing reality, not Zionism.”

On Saturday reality arrived for the Golan Druze in the nastiest way possible; now speculation that the rocket attack will provide the casus belli to upgrade the northern shadow war to an official war is at fever pitch – this morning one of my neighbors recommended I stock up on six-packs of water. In the meantime, mourners at the funerals of the children protested the presence of government ministers, in much the same way Israelis throughout the country have done since October 7: “You abandoned us for nine months and now you are here?” one shouted at Nir Barkat and Idit Silman, to applause, while another yelled “You have no shame. A boy went to play football and didn’t come home.”

In doing so, they surely spoke for many people in the north, both Jewish and Arab. After making repeated promises that residents would be able to return to their homes by the start of the school year on September 1, last week Yoav Kisch, the Minister for Education, announced that schools would not, in fact, be reopening. If war starts, it will be deeply ironic that it was caused by an attack on the Jawlanis, a community that has historically been pro-Assad, an ally of the Iranian regime that sponsors Hezbollah, the terror group that fired the rocket which killed their children. Even more ironically, in the wider context of efforts to unite Arabs across the region against the Jewish State, this atrocity will surely hasten the Israelization of the Golan Druze.