Golan Heights
Golan Heights | |
---|---|
Location | Middle East |
Type | nation state |
Interest of | Arab Human Rights Centre in Golan Heights |
Israel's exploitation of wind energy in the occupied Golan Heights is legal under international law because it does not deplete the territory's natural capital. But oil drilling would violate that principle. |
Syria's Golan Heights have been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. Oil exploration rights in the Golan Heights were awarded in 2010 to Genie Energy, a US company founded by Howard Jonas, an American Jewish millionaire, whose 'strategic advisory board' includes Dick Cheney, the US vice-president under George W Bush, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, Lord Jacob Rothschild, Larry Summers, a senior official under Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and former CIA director James Woolsey. The chairman of Afek, Genie's Israeli subsidiary, is Effi Eitam, a far-right former general and cabinet minister who lives in an illegal settlement in the Golan.
In October 2015, a huge oil discovery in the Golan Heights was reported in the Israeli media.[1]
On Friday 13 November 2015, the day of the mass murder in Paris, Israel announced it was seeking to annex the Golan Heights.[2]