Yearning for the Golan Heights: why Syria wants it back

Like many of those who fled, Ali's family was ripped apart by the occupation. His uncles remained in the territory, and he and his parents never saw them again. With no direct phone lines existing between Israel and Syria, families would in the past meet on the border and use megaphones to communicate. Today, they talk using Skype, an Internet phone service.

328 feet short of a peace deal in 2000

Meanwhile, thousands of Israelis have moved in. Israel has constructed 32 settlements on the territory it annexed in 1981 – in violation of United Nations Resolution 242, which considers the Golan part of Israel's occupied territories.

The Golan now has a population of 38,000, comprising about 21,000 Arabs loyal to Syria and 17,000 Jews. The territory has become a popular Israeli tourist destination and home to a thriving agricultural sector as well as military bases.

Peace negotiations between the two sides have been sporadic over the past decades.

In 2000, a US-brokered peace agreement was nearly reached but talks collapsed after Syria insisted on a return to the entire pre-1967 war border, which included 328 feet Israel would not give up. Turkish-mediated indirect peace talks broke up last December in protest over Israel's military offensive on Gaza.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed a willingness to restart talks, he is opposed to a complete withdrawal from the Golan. In July Uzi Arad, a close aide to Mr. Netanyahu, told Israel's Haaretz newspaper that "if there is a territorial compromise, it is one that still leaves Israel on the Golan Heights and deep into the Golan Heights."

But Syria has never given up its claim on the territory and says its full return is the only basis for peace with Israel. Mr. Mekdad was expected to press this argument while meeting with US officials Monday.

If a peace deal is eventually concluded, Israel has indicated it would accept the return of Golan refugees so long as they do not drain water supplies from the Jewish state.

Few can cross into the Golan

Meanwhile, Syria says it's doing everything it can to maintain ties with the Arabs still in the Golan Heights, most of whom have rejected Israeli citizenship and pledge allegiance to Damascus, says Methat Saleh, director of the Syrian government's Bureau of Golan Affairs.

Mr. Saleh, who named his son Golan and spent 12 years in an Israeli prison for resistance activities, explained in a recent interview that Syria provides financial support to some living in the Golan, while trying to help the population maintain their Syrian cultural identity. The country's domestic television channel maintains a bureau in the territory and inhabitants can access Syrian TV.

Yet with the border firmly closed, direct contact is almost impossible. Among the few who can cross are a group of students whom the two governments allow to study at Damascus University. The program was initiated in 1991 and there are currently about 250 students from the Golan studying in Syria.

According to one who didn't want to reveal his name, the program strengthens the students to continue "daily mental resistance."

"As long as we don't forget that we're Syrian and as long as we're speaking Arabic in our homes, [the Israelis] won't destroy our Arab identity," says the student, who also speaks fluent Hebrew and has spent past summers employed as a construction worker in Tel Aviv.

The only others allowed across this border are Druze religious figures who make an annual pilgrimage to Syria, as well as a limited number of Syrian women who are permitted to marry men in the Golan but are then barred from returning.

Despite these hardships, displaced Syrians from the Golan say they will ensure that their Golanese identity remains alive and that when the moment arrives they will be ready to go back.

"When we return to the Golan we'll even take our dead back with us," says Ali.

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