Word: golan
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Caught in between four countries and sixty years of conflict, the disputed territory of the Golan Heights seems closer than ever to a permanent resolution, after decades of tug-of-war between Israel and Syria over its rightful ownership. Israel's new Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, has expressed a commitment to resolving the Golan issue once and for all, while outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert mentioned the impossibility of ever hoping for peace with the Syrians without giving up the Golan Heights in a recent interview...
...history of the rocky, Los Angeles-sized plateau, strategically nestled between Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan, traces back to biblical times. From 953-586 B.C. the Golan Heights was both a buffer zone and a contested area for the ancient Kingdom of Israel and the Aramean Kingdom in Damascus...
...following centuries, the Golan Heights changed hands incessantly, enduring brief bouts of occupation by everyone from Alexander the Great to the Roman Empire. The area finally settled under the control of the Ottomans in the 16th century, where it remained until the dissolution of the Empire after World War I. French mandated modern-day Syria emerged from its ashes and the Golan Heights was included within its newly defined borders...
...After the establishment of the state of Israel and the ensuing Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, the Golan Heights once again became the site of tumultuous border clashes. Syria took advantage of the area's mountainous terrain and high vantage points to shell the Israeli border below while Israel attempted to occupy and control the demilitarized areas and divert the Golan Heights' freshwater supply from the Jordan River for its own uses...
...Israel finally seized control of the Golan Heights as well as Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza during the Six-Day War of 1967. Approximately 100,000 of the Heights' mainly Druze inhabitants fled or were forced out as Israel rushed to tap into the freshwater source, build settlements and use the high ground to monitor Syrian activity below...