In 1923, an agreement between the United Kingdom and France established the border between the British Mandate of Palestine and the French Mandate of Syria. The British handed over the southern Golan Heights to the French in return for the northern Jordan Valley. The border was re-drawn so that both sides of the Jordan River and the whole of the Sea of Galilee, including a 10-metre wide strip along the northeastern shore, were made part of Palestine. The 1947 UN Partition Plan put this territory inside the Jewish state. As indicated in a previous article of this series, the 1949 Syrian-Israeli armistice agreement contained numerous clauses that were interpreted differently by Israel and Syria, leading to ambiguities over such issues as administrative rights within the demilitarised zone that had been created from areas evacuated by the Syrian army in 1949, fishing rights in Lake Tiberias, and access to the waters of the Jordan River. These and other issues were constant sources of tension between the two countries, leading to localized exchanges of artillery and rocket fire, which kept escalating, especially in 1955. The Egyptian Gazette of March 27, 1955 carried a front-page report headlined: Syria: Hostile Reaction to Pact with Egypt Pact directed solely against Israel Referring to a new Arab alliance between Egypt and Syria, The Gazette report said: “A Syrian official; stated that the alliance was purely defensive and was not directed against Turkey or any other country......... It is meant for Arab defence against the Zionist danger............" Meanwhile, a report in The Egyptian Gazette of 21/10/1954 criticised the Western powers not only for arming Israel but also for creating it. Headlined: Israelis Used Arms of West, The Gazette report (from Damascus) said: Commenting on the Israeli ambush on the Israeli-Syrian border on Saturday night, Minister of Defence, Rashad Bremda, said it was ‘a direct result of the crime committed by imperialist powers when they created Israel.' ‘In this treacherous attack, the Israelis had used the modern arms, which the West had provided them with', he added. “Brigadier Shawkat Shukeir, Chief of Staff of the Syrian Armed Forces, said in an eulogy of Lieutenant Ashraf Hamdy who was killed in the ambush that the Syrian Army would not rest until justice was done. [email protected]
