Introduction

Conducting research on ethnic-based planning policies and practices in the Occupied Syrian Golan, given the area’s internationally-recognized status as a militarily occupied area, might not normally be seen as necessary. However, in 1981 and during the four decades since the Israeli occupying authorities have imposed Israeli civilian law on the indigenous population, with profound consequences. This has rendered such research necessary in order to expose the discriminatory impact of the occupying authorities planning policies, their erosion of democracy, and their contradiction of false claims of equality between all Israeli "citizens".

This research paper aims to reveal the discriminatory policies of the occupying Israeli authorities, on the basis of "min famuka odinuka"(from your mouth I condemn you), whilst adopting a comparative approach, contrasting the planning policies and practices in Jewish settlements and Syrian villages in the occupied Golan. 1967 witnessed the second phase of the Zionist occupation of Arab lands. In June of that year, Israel launched an expansionist war against neighboring Arab countries, resulting in its occupation of the entire area of historic Palestine, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in addition to the Egyptian Sinai and the majority of the Syrian Golan.

During the war and in subsequent weeks, the Israeli authorities carried out a fierce ethnic cleansing operation throughout the now occupied area of the Golan. Within a few months, the occupying authorities uprooted more than 95% of the population (approximately 140,000 people), using violence, killings, as well as forcible expulsion from residential areas to elsewhere inside Syria. The vast majority of residential communities, namely 340 villages, and the city of Quneitra, were completely destroyed.

Hebrew sources confirm that in 1967, during the war, the occupying power uprooted more than 250,000 people from their homes in the West Bank and the Golan, and expelled them to Jordan and elsewhere in Syria respectively.

After the occupying authorities largely accomplished their project of ethnic cleansing in the Golan, it began to consolidate its grip on the land, through the establishment of settlements and the recruitment of Jewish settlers. As part of these actions, in violation of international law, the occupation authorities have imposed far-reaching urban planning policies in the occupied Golan.