Trump to Get a Settlement in the Ethnically-Cleansed Golan Named After Him

That’s great for Trump, there’ll be a Donald J. kibbutz in occupied Syria, possibly on the land of some guy who was among the 130,000 Syrians expelled in 1967 and not allowed to return since:

At the onset of the 1967 War, which ended in a brilliant strategic victory, enabling Israel to widen its territory and shift the border from the valley below the Golan to mountain above, the Golan Heights were home to between 130,000-150,000 inhabitants. The majority of them were civilians who lived in 275 towns and villages. The largest town was Quneitra, the main city of the district, where a quarter of that population lived — a minority of whom were military personnel and their families.

During the course of the battles, as the Syrian army withdrew, about half of the civilians joined the retreat to seek shelter from Israeli bombardments, waiting for a ceasefire that would allow them to return to their homes.

But those who remained behind the ceasefire line were not allowed to return. Later, those Syrian refugees who tried to return to their homes were declared infiltrators; they were sometimes fired upon by Israeli soldiers in order to scare them, while those who succeeded in crossing the border were sentenced and detained.

After the fighting was over, there remained in the Golan Heights tens of thousands of people, about half of the Syrian inhabitants. They were all expelled, with the exception of the Druze. The civilian population, consisting mostly of Sunni Muslims, among whom there were a few thousand refugees from the 1948 War, as well as some Circassians and others, was transferred across the border in an orderly manner.

Ex-combatants and residents of the Jordan Valley who came to the Golan Heights after the cessation of hostilities testified about soldiers whowere seated behind tables taken from houses close to the ceasefire line, and forced the Syrian residents to sign documents stating that they were voluntarily leaving their houses and moving to Syrian territory.

It can be assumed that the lists testifying to the silent transfer that took place in the Golan are hidden somewhere in the military archives, which will not be opened to the public for many years for reasons of state security. After the end of the fighting there was widespread plunder, but no acts of slaughter were committed such as the ones being perpetrated by Assad against his people.

On the contrary: the expulsion proceeded in a disciplined and institutionalized fashion — a quiet expulsion. Convoys of military vehicles entered Quneitra with a message transmitted over loudspeakers warning the residents that they had to leave or else they could come to harm.

After they fled, the beautiful city with its historic buildings stood empty for a time before it was razed to the ground. Dwellings, commercial centers, movie theaters, hospitals, schools, kindergartens, cemeteries, mosques, and churches were completely demolished by the Israeli military’s artillery fire and aerial bombardment.

The village dwellers who clung to their houses and were afraid to come out were also commanded to leave and march to the other side of the border. In subsequent days, bulldozers and tractors from the Jordan Valley were brought to the Golan Heights, and in an unparalleled lightning operation, destroyed all the villages, save for some buildings left standing for military training purposes.

Within a short span of time, the world of tens of thousands of people collapsed: educators, medical personnel, officials, managers, merchants, and farmers lost their land, their houses, and all their belongings. An old woman, whom all witnesses remembered well, remained in one of the villages for a few years until her death.