LETTER: Israel’s bizarre logic on Golan Heights

Speaking at a recent event in London to mark the republication of Edward Said’s The Question of Palestine, Saree Makdisi, a nephew of Said and literary critic, said: “Next time you read the headline ‘Dozens die in Gaza air strikes’ try to remember that that misleading and mystifying phrase, carefully designed by anonymous newspaper editors to veil agency and responsibility and draw readers into the shadowy realm of obscurity and abstraction, is covering up far more than it claims to cover.”

Makdisi’s words echoed in my head when I read the Business Day headline “Israel deploys troops in Golan Heights demilitarised zone” (December 9). The rest of the report, relying entirely on Israeli spokespersons and a bland narrative, catalogued Israel’s unprovoked attacks on Syria. Reading the article without a sense of history, context or law, most would consider this act by Israel to be normal, rational and legal.

Israel’s recent occupation of the buffer zone — established in 1974 and monitored by the UN — is an egregious attack on Syria and in violation of international law; the zone is demilitarised but an integral part of Syria. Syria did not attack Israel, it has not done so in decades, nor is there any evidence that it intended to do so. In fact, the rebels who have taken control of Syria are armed and funded by the US and Israel.

It is ludicrous to accept Israel’s rationale that the (illegal) occupation of the buffer zone is to protect the Israeli occupied Golan Heights, when the Golan Heights itself is Syrian territory illegally occupied by Israel. Only Israel itself and the US (by Trump’s declaration when president), recognises Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The rest of the world, in accordance with international law, regards it as illegally occupied territory.

Israel refuses to abide by international law and vacate the Golan Heights occupied in 1967, claiming it serves as a buffer zone. That creates a bizarre logic to Israel’s claims — whereby another illegal buffer zone is required to protect the original illegal buffer zone. This act is further evidence of Israel’s expansionist motif and belligerent occupation and stealing land by stealth, as it has done for decades in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and now in Gaza.

Business Day, even when republishing Reuters, has an obligation to inform its readers of the facts and not be an instrument in covering up or manufacturing consent for illegality.

Shuaib Manjra
Rondebosch

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