Golan Heights Town Tells Tale of Israeli-Arab War
By Samia Nakhoul
May 7, 2001
QUNEITRA, Golan Heights (Reuters) - When Pope John Paul visited this
frontline town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights Monday, his Syrian
hosts did not have to say anything.
"We will not explain anything to the Pope. It is enough that he
sees,'' said Mohammad Ali, an Information Ministry official.
Indeed, the panorama of destruction tells the whole story. Bulldozed
houses, naked buildings, demolished hospitals, shell-holed churches and
devastated mosques are blunt reminders of the bitter conflict between
Israel and Syria.
Time stopped at Quneitra when the Israelis withdrew in 1974 under a
U.S.-negotiated armistice. Israeli troops destroyed everything in their
wake, leaving not one building intact.
Syria has not rebuilt the town but has left it as a macabre memorial to
what it called Israeli aggressions and atrocities.
Quneitra, sandwiched between Mount Hermon and rolling green fields with
cypress trees, looks like a localized earthquake.
Once a thriving agricultural town of 60,000, the streets are now a
tangle of concrete and steel. They give way to a grim no-man's-land where
barbed wire sprouts up like weeds.
"Let him see the destruction left by Israel because the world has a
false image of Israel,'' said Hassan Barazi, 53, who lived in the town
before the 1967 war but now has his home in a nearby village.
Israel's military radar posts perched on the dominating peak serve as
towering reminders, if any were needed, that regional peace has been
elusive.
From the battered Greek Orthodox church in Quneitra from where the Pope
made his prayer for peace, the Pontiff could see the Israeli military
positions and radar posts on the other side of the Western Golan which the
Jewish state captured in the six-Day War of 1967 and still occupies.
"After all this time has passed, His Holiness will see how the
occupiers have changed this place to ruins,'' said Jihan Chebaniyah, a
refugee from the Golan.
War Tales
Refugees, visiting their homeland before the Pope's trip, recounted war
tales and how they lost their property and homes. They said they now live
in hope that peace will come one day and bring them the life they have
missed.
"I remember my childhood well. I remember my house and the color of
its walls. I remember the furniture we had. I lived most of my childhood
in these hills and fields. I want to come back and live here,'' Barazi
said.
Quneitra has now become a historical site for Syrians. Families, who
were forced to flee, bring their children on picnics to see their land.
Schools take students for outings and lessons in history.
"Over there is the Zionist enemy,'' a mother told her little daughter
as they walked near the barbed wire fences, looking at opposite Israeli
positions.
Residents of the Golan Heights who have became refugees in other
cities, including Damascus, say they see a good omen in the Pope's
pilgrimage to Syria.
"The Pope is the holy father of everybody. He is a man of justice, a
man of love. He wants people to regain their rights. We hope his visit
will bring peace,'' Barazi said.
Heartaches
Many villagers, children at the time, recounted how they fled with
their families from one village to another, sleeping in the fields until
they could find transportation to Damascus.
They all repeat the Syrian government line that they cannot see any
peace without a full Israeli withdrawal from the strategic plateau.
"Our land is like our honor. It is sacred and precious to us and we
will not concede any inch,'' said Mohammad Ramada, 30.
Chebaniya said: "I hope we can have peace. My heart aches at this
site. I bring my children here all the time to see their land and where we
once lived. We always bring them to see the land.
"The Pope came all the way and he will see with his eyes. He will
convey the message to the Western world,'' she said.
Although the official purpose of the visit is a religious one --
following in the footsteps of St. Paul the Apostle -- the Pope has made
Middle East war and peace the theme of his trip.
"From this place, so disfigured by war, I wish to raise my voice in
prayer for peace in the Holy Land and the world,'' he said.
"We pray to you for the peoples of the Middle East. Help them to break
down the walls of hostility and division and to build together a world of
justice and solidarity,'' the Pope said inside a battered church.
