Israel will ‘double settlements’ in occupied Golan Heights

After five decades, the Golan Hights will see more Jewish settler population. Israel’s government on Sunday approved a $317 million plan in this regard. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said the country intends to double the number of settlers in the occupied Golan Hights with a multimillion-dollar plan meant to further consolidate Israel’s hold on the territory it captured from Syria more than 50 years ago. Bennett said the new investment in the region was prompted by the Trump administration’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the swath of land in 2019 and by the Biden administration’s indication that it will not soon challenge that decision.

Israel occupied the Golan Heights in the 1967 Mideast war and in 1981 annexed the territory, promoting settlement and agriculture there as well as creating a thriving local tourism industry. About 25,000 Israeli settlers live in the Golan Heights, along with some 23,000 Druze, who remained on the land after it was seized by Israel. The US was the first country to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan, which the rest of the international community regards as Israeli-occupied. “The Golan Heights are Israeli. This is self-evident,” Bennett said. “This is our moment. This is the moment of the Golan Heights,” Bennett said at a special Cabinet meeting in the Golan Heights on Sunday. “After long and static years in terms of the scope of settlement, our goal today is to double settlement in the Golan Heights,” he added. Israel has long argued that the strategically important area has, for all practical purposes, been fully integrated into Israel since it was captured from Syria – and that control of the strategic plateau is needed as protection from Iran and its allies in Syria.