They call it the shouting valley because families are separated by a fence, so they literally shout back and forth to one another with megaphones.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Syria occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, and Israelis have moved into most of the territory.\u00a0 But there are five villages\u2014little enclaves\u2014where Syrians still live.\u00a0 They\u00a0are restricted\u00a0going in or out except to go to college or to get married.\u00a0 And crossing the fence for marriage amounts to a one-way ticket.\u00a0 So families are divided, because some managed to leave those villages and others stayed back.<\/p>\n
People from the Golan tend to keep close ties with extended members of the family\u2014so they say they say big events like weddings and holidays are difficult.<\/p>\n
Renua Shaalan lives in Damascus.\u00a0 Two of her sisters married men in the one of the villages Israel controls, Ayn Kynia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the family is here and the other part is there.\u00a0 Part of your property is here and the other there.\u00a0 So you are living in two places at the same time and you also have to divide your emotions in two halves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Golan Heights is green, fertile and a source of drinking water.\u00a0\u00a0 It has always been called a strategic land.\u00a0 But in the age of satellites, this last issue has become moot, many say.<\/p>\n
Syria demands the whole Golan back before peace can be made with Israel.<\/p>\n
Sami Moubayed, editor of Forward Magazine said, \u201cI can assure you that once the Golan issue is given top priority by the Obama administration, you will find a real strong and sincere thawing of relations unprecedented between the Syrians and the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Syria and Israel came close to coming to an agreement about land and borders.\u00a0 Some point out this goes to show how quickly things could be resolved if political will is there.\u00a0 The talks, which were conducted via the Turks, broke down in 2008 after the Israeli incursion into Gaza, its reponse to Hamas\u2019 firing of rockets into Israel.<\/p>\n
Syria won back a third of the Golan Heights in the 1973 war.\u00a0 The regional capital Quneitra remains a museum to war\u2014with buildings in ruins.\u00a0 Not much has been rebuilt. \u00a0Syria claims Israel destroyed Quneitra when it pulled out. \u00a0Israel claims it was destroyed in war. \u00a0It was a deliberate decision on the part of the Syrian government to leave Quneitra this way, until the land is returned.\u00a0 But some wonder why, if the land is so precious, Syria is not developing it in the meantime. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Attachment to the land is palpable, as you visit Quneitra, and see families picnicking amidst the rubble, walking around, enjoying the land in whatever condition it\u2019s in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They call it the shouting valley because families are separated by a fence, so they literally shout back and forth to one another with megaphones.\u00a0 Syria occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, and Israelis have moved into most of the territory.\u00a0 But there are five villages\u2014little enclaves\u2014where Syrians still live.\u00a0 They\u00a0are restricted\u00a0going in or out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}