I was in the Golan 1 year ago this month teaching on a tour of Canadians visiting Israel. We had a wonderful time bumping up and down and around all the farms, settlements and kibbutzim of the Golan. We visited a bottled water factory and an olive oil company. We had lunch in Qatsrin. The mainly Russian Jews who live there all have to sign an agreement to leave on as little as 6 hours notice by order of the IDF in the event of a Syrian or Iranian or whomever invasion. The climate is more moderate than the rest of Israel and it is lush and beautiful. There is a water plant there that -reportedly - has a standing offer from a Emiratey prince to purchase it in the event that Syria is give back the Golan Heights in another of the doomed "land for peace" deals that Israel has signed over the last 50 years (Sinai, Gaza & Southern Lebanon).
Damascus is exactly 50 km from the border with Israel and would today be part of its Golan territory (perhaps along with parts of Iraq and Jordan who both belatedly sent troops to the Assad's reqime aid in the last days of that conflict) were it not for the Russians threatening nuclear war at the close of the Yom Kippur War to keep the IDF from marching unopposed through its streets.
It was a warm, sunny, peaceful and beautiful day. Not so much lately.
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