The following quotations are from Uri Avnery’s text “The Golan Heights under Israeli Occupation”, a working document presented in 1983. Following the Israeli announcement that the Golan Heights would be annexed and come under normal Israeli jurisdiction, the Syrian Arab villages which had not been depopulated in 1967 launched a general-strike in protest of the annexation order.
On 13 February, the 15,000 Syrian Arab inhabitants of the Golan again declared a general strike: the second general strike since declaration of annexation. Despite Israeli hopes to the contrary, the general strike was sustained with complete success. The economy of the Northern District was seriously disrupted by the withdrawal of labour of the 2,500 regular Syrian Arab workers who commute daily to work in Israeli kibbutz and development town factories in the North. Threats of dismissal were completely ineffective since it soon became evident that Israeli employers could not locate replacements for the withdrawn labour force.
On 24 February, two more Syrian Arab residents of Jadj al-Shams, Salman Fakhr al-Din and Jamal Batesh, were jailed under three months’ administrative detention orders.
When the general strike entered its twelfth day, the Israeli army moved in in an attempt to crush the resistance. On 25 Februrary [1982], Major General Amir Drori, Commander of the Northern Command, ordered the blockade of the four Arab villages: al-Shams, Mas’ada, Buq’ata and Ayn Qiniya.
The blockade was vicious: by mid-march, a total of 25 residents of the four Syrian Arab villages were jailed under administrative detention orders, including two eight year old shepherd boys charged with curfew violations. Food shortages became acute. Mekorot, the Israeli national water company, reduced its water supplies, and the national electricity company similarly cut its supplies tot he blockaded population….The press reported that some 40 per cent of the child population under 14 in the blockaded villages suffered from measles, which , unless properly treated, can cause permeant damage to the livers of young children.
Uri Avnery, “The Golan Heights under Israeli Occupation”, 1983. page 46-47
Today, the Syrian Regime uses blockades, arrests, and violence of all levels to suppress the protests of its indigenous population. From Uri Avenery’s account, we can see that the Syrian regime’s crimes have a precedent in the repression by the Israeli Apartheid regime inside occupied Syria.
Only a Northern Song 