The 2019 Purim Miracle

Posted on March 23, 2019 by Charles E. McCracken

On Thursday, March 21, 2019, I received an email from the White House Office of Public Liaison with respect to U.S. policy regarding the Golan Heights on Israel’s northern border. Here is an excerpt with the announcement:

“After 52 years, it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and regional stability!”

As Executive Director of Olive Tree Alliance, I applaud President Donald J. Trump for boldly standing with the people of Israel in officially recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

The Golan Since San Remo

Nearly one hundred years ago, the Golan Heights were included in the British Mandate of Palestine that was established at the San Remo Conference in 1922. At the time, there were no Syrian borders because the entire area was included in the territory of the defeated Ottoman Empire. (1)

Much of the land was owned and farmed by various Jewish societies including 18,000 acres purchased by Baron Edmond de Rothschild in 1891.

The British in an action that was contrary to the spirit of the British Mandate ceded the Golan to Syria in the Franco-British Agreement of March 7, 1923. When the French Mandate of Syria was terminated in 1944, the land was officially assimilated into the Republic of Syria stripping away the title deeds of all Jewish landowners in the Golan Heights.

Syria seized military control in 1948 and began routine rocket, mortar and sniper attacks aimed at Israelis living in the Galilee. You will recall that Egypt, Syria and Jordan coordinated an attack to annihilate the State of Israel in 1967.

When the Six Day War erupted, Jewish farmers in the Galilee urged Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan to authorize a military operation to recapture the Golan Heights and end the nightmare reality of daily rocket and mortar attacks from Syria. Fearing possible reprisals if Russia came to the aid of the Syrians, Israel’s Ministerial Committee on Defense refused to issue the order.

At 6:00 A.M. on the morning of June 9, 1967, however, Dayan reversed the decision. Recognizing the disintegration of the Syrian military as evidenced by soldiers fleeing their posts, Defense Minister Dayan issued an order to engage and defeat the Syrian army in the Golan Heights. With control of the strategic area, Israel could now protect the citizenry from Syrian aggression.

Syria attempted to regain the Golan Heights during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but failed. Israel formally annexed the northernmost territory in 1981.

March 21, 2019 (5779)

For the past 52 years, the international community has refused to recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights until Thursday’s landmark announcement by President Trump that some including the Prime Minister of Israel are calling nes Purim—a Purim miracle.

IMAGE:
1) Detail and full image: Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) from the Golan Heights. Copyright © 2006 Charles E. McCracken Archives.

ENDNOTE:
(1) Originally a much larger area, the Bible refers to the Golan as Bashan, the territory assigned to the tribe of Manasseh (Deut. 4:43; Josh. 13:29-30).