O Golan, where art thou?
May 6, 2008
Remember the big PR campaign run by the Syrian government on the sad 40th anniversary of the illegal Israeli occupation of the Golan? Neither do I. To be fair, they only had 40 years to prepare and are probably saving their best efforts for an eventual 50th anniversary, so why rush them before that milestone? Besides, the Syrian government, with an infinite wisdom which I do not possess, is calmly confident in the knowledge that Golan facts are common knowledge needing no introduction.
In the meantime, after having illegally occupied it in 1967 and illegally annexed it in 1981, the sneaky Israelis have gone and run their own PR campaign to remind (and not to convince) the world that the Golan is Israeli. The Israeli Ministry of Tourism (note the clever URL) has outdone itself with the biggest campaign it ever ran, concocting advertisements with dreamy images and brand new slogans which ask, even when showing the Golan: "This is Israel. Who knew?"
Good question. I didn’t, but I might be in a minority because others already knew, or are finding out quickly by reading articles such as the following two, which should only be read with tissues on standby as the inspirational “human interest” slant will make even the most detached of you empathize with the plight of these poor lonesome cowboys who are definitely far away from home.
In the National Post this week, Karen Burshtein romanticizes about the life of "an old cowhand from the Holy Land," describing the Golan as “the wild mountainous region in northeast Israel,” and as “the finger of land between Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.” It takes 640 words to discover that “Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 war”, a capture which most readers will assume is legal and final, given that “the Israel Land Authority owns the land” which happens to be “one of the most beautiful regions in Israel.”
It is odd (or is it?) that the word “capture” has become the norm for describing what would be called an invasion and an occupation when other states are involved. At least Joel Greenberg, in the Chicago Tribune, acknowledges that the cowboy of his story (also this week, as chance would have it) “lives not in Israel proper but in the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.” Greenberg professionally elaborates that “the area is generally viewed abroad as occupied territory,” even though the terrific cowboys call it home, "home on the Heights.” Still, for the sake of a true peace (cue for tissues), this cowboy is willing to give up his home, after which he says “they’ll write that I died of a broken heart.”
Israeli settler on occupied Syrian land … aka “Golan Cowboy.”
Israeli embassies the world over thoroughly scour media in their respective countries, monitoring publications, airwaves, and cyberspace, and firing off indignant but eloquent and effective letters to the editors responsible for digressions from their agenda and their “facts.” Their Syrian counterparts, unfortunately, do not believe this is worth their time, which is one reason why articles like these continue to form opinions and strengthen perceptions in Israel’s favor, including the myth of the “Israeli Golan.”
Cowboys and journalists are not the only ones to be smitten by the wonderful territory: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his wife just spent Passover vacation in the Golan, already familiar with its charms which Israel markets as if the Golan were really its own, enticing visitors to see the “wonderful scenic treasures alongside lovely nature reserves, historic and archeological sites and attractions, for the whole family.” Indeed, continues the ministry, the beauty of the Golan is so captivating that some visitors return again and again (Olmerts included, and apparently not to say goodbye).
This is nothing that Syrians didn’t already know of course, and it could only mean that Israel not only stole the Golan, but probably also stole the entire marketing literature which Syria presents. Burden of proof calling, I decided to cast a cursory glance at the relevant Syrian sites and deliver the confirmation.
Logically, I visited the website of the Syrian Ministry of Tourism to report on the evidence. Using the search engine, since the Golan was nowhere to be found on the front page, I learned that “old historical texts refer to the Golan as the extension of the slopes of Mt. Hernon,” and that “during the Canaanite period Banias was known as Laish, and most probably, it was the capital of an Aramaic kingdom / Beit Rahoub.” The two paragraphs on the Golan (the third one being a repetition) go all the way up to Greek and Arab geographers.
After reading this fascinating description, don’t you just want to jump on a plane and go visit with your family? And doesn’t it give you the distinct conviction that the Golan is an integral part of Syria? If not, you must be one of those difficult, hard to please people; thankfully, the Ministry of Tourism was ready for this eventuality and posted on its main page, in capital letters you can’t miss, a link to the ultimate tourism pitch:
“THE AXIS OF EAVIL IS AFTER ALL NOT SO BAD.” [sic]
I don’t mean to be picky, but I think this marketing approach needs a rethink if the Syrians are going to begin marketing what is theirs. But maybe it is not the Ministry of Tourism’s job to mention and describe the Golan, especially when it uses the website’s front page to advertise investment conferences, rather than actual tourism. There are a few countries in the world where ministries of information still exist, I remembered, which is surely where such details will be found by the few determined inquisitive minds which haven’t yet absorbed the Israeli campaign.
So I visited the website of the Ministry of Information, following a crazy hunch that its default purpose was to inform, and to initiate campaigns dispersing actual information, if not merely respond to the Israeli ones. I had been under the strange impression that the Ministry of Information’s job mostly consisted of informing non-Syrians (and non-Arabic speakers) about Syria. It turns out there isn’t even a page in English on the website of the ministry dealing with foreign media.
Still clinging to a wild belief that government ministries couldn’t possibly be guilty of such massive incompetence (or, even worse, of such negligence), I concluded I was simply looking in the wrong places, not finding where journalists, travel agents, tourists, writers, students, or anyone remotely interested in the region would automatically look.
I suddenly remembered an obvious place I had overlooked: the website of the Ministry of Culture. Eureka! Obviously, since Damascus is the Culture Capital of the Arab World in 2008, all relevant information and facts about capital and country would be on its website, even though a first look indicated its English was inherited from SANA. Eagerly, I clicked on the “About Syria” page: it was blank. (Blank, that is, except for the "Print this document" indicator.)
Time to concentrate, I thought, not to panic. If the Ministry of Culture is unable to come up with a single sentence about the country, which government entity should one turn to in a desperate search for information on the Golan, and, just as importantly, for a campaign to counter Israel’s “Who knew?” ads? Which government entity would have the linguistic capacity and the marketing communication expertise to tell the world about the Golan, or about anything related to Syria?
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs doesn’t even have a website, a sign of self-assurance that unlike all other countries in the world, Syria’s foreign policy is consistently crystal clear and needs no explanation. However, I dared hope, the few Syrian embassies which actually have websites would have understood the importance of clear communication, relevant information, simple clear design, coherence and compatibility; a discouraging search demonstrated that they didn’t. Each embassy has a different domain name system, a different style, and different contents, with no concerted effort to project a unified image, a consistent template or a common message. On the issue of the Golan, however, they are unanimous: they ignore it.
Thus, to mention only a few examples, the website of the Syrian Embassy in London manages a few links on the wrong page but serves for little other than ridiculously expensive visa applications. The website of the Syrian Embassy in Washington, D.C. has a busy, hard to read (bold white on dark blue) erratic text and an awkward collage of photos on a long rambling page. The website of the Syrian Embassy in Paris is a disappointing, inelegant, rudimentary site listing all the information in an unorganized sequence on one page. The website of the Syrian Embassy in Ottawa is so clumsy that it looks as if it was typed on a typewriter, so outdated that the front page still links to the Presidential Election dates, and boasts a “photo gelery.” It also links to a certain website called Occupied Golan, a name not conducive to great excitement but which at least addresses the issue. If interested, do click on the link: the domain name is for sale.
Uninspiring, maddening and totally inadequate, so far. Clutching at straws, I turned to a website which I have frequently ridiculed and which makes a mockery of the concept of news agency (and which actually shows the BBC logo when it is bookmarked!). But at least, I consoled myself as I waited for the page to load its mediocre drivel not even fit for classic propaganda, at least good old bad SANA would go on and on about the Golan, tirelessly “underlining” the fact that it is Syrian, that it is occupied, that international law says it has to be given back, and that it also happens to be a lovely area with delicious apples, wonderful water, and all the other things that the Israelis have stolen from us, but for which we will wait forever if we have to, knowing that one day it will come back to the Syrian homeland, like its liberated city Quneitra, and that we will again smell the fresh air of the Golan and swim in its lake, thank you very much. Or something to that effect.
Alas, good old bad SANA did not underline any of that. It didn’t have a page, a link, or a paragraph stating the official Syrian position on the Golan, or on anything else. Of course, this could be because the Golan isn't actual news, but that never stopped SANA before. Nevertheless, it did have a page titled “Other Useful web sites” [sic] (implying that SANA considered itself to be useful, but I digress) which I hoped would finally lead me to the holy grail: I should not have been surprised to find a blank page, yet again. Mea culpa.
My search has ended. For the time being, information about the Golan - and about all other issues relating to the regional conflict - will continue to star in official Israeli websites and to shine by its absence on official Syrian websites. Syria has decided to not even fire a shot in the media war (not necessarily a bad thing given the "quality" of the material generated so far), ceding the information highway to the pros.
This obviously doesn’t mean we are going to remain passive as Israel continues to blatantly claim ownership of our land, sixty years after the Nakba, and 41 years since it “captured” the Golan, the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. As SANA proudly announced, this year will not only be “a year of marches and protests in Arab countries” – yeah, that will show them – but it will also be, right in the beating heart of Arabism, the year that the biggest Palestinian flag ever made will fly in the Damascus sky in a quest to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. I wanted you to know that, before resting my case.
