Israel Annexes Golan Heights: Law Ratified Amid Criticism

Israel's parliament voted to extend Israeli law over territory captured fourteen years earlier in war, a move virtually every other nation on Earth rejected as illegal. On December 14, 1981, the Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law, effectively annexing the strategic volcanic plateau that Israel had seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War. The Golan Heights, a rocky plateau rising above the Sea of Galilee, had been used by Syrian forces to shell Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley below. Israel captured it in the final days of the 1967 war and maintained military control ever since. Over the intervening years, Israel built settlements and integrated the plateau into its water and agricultural systems. By 1981, roughly 12,000 Israeli settlers lived alongside about 15,000 Druze inhabitants who had remained after the war. Prime Minister Menachem Begin pushed the law through with little advance notice, surprising even the United States. The timing may have connected to the planned Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula under the Camp David Accords, making Begin eager to demonstrate resolve on other territorial questions. The law passed sixty-three to twenty-one. The international response was swift and negative. The United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 497, declaring the Golan Heights Law "null and void and without international legal effect." Syria condemned it as an act of aggression. The Druze population of the Golan staged a general strike lasting several months in protest. The annexation remains unrecognized by the international community, though the United States broke with this consensus in March 2019 when President Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.