Did Syrians Shell Israeli Farmers From the Golan Heights?
Myth: “For nearly 20 years, Syrian troops sat up here and fired down at Ein Gev, at farmers in the fields, at children at play, at people leading peaceful lives. They might call it war against the ‘Zionist entity,’ but I’d call it murder, the murder of people who only want to live in peace.” Golan Heights Jewish settler Joel Sheinfeld, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Jan. 4, 1993 Fact: “This oft-repeated claim about Syrian shelling ignores the repeated attacks by Israeli kibbutzniks and border police against Palestinian and Syrian villagers who were indigenous to the Syrian-Israeli demilitarized zone, which led to the shelling in question. The demilitarized zone, set up after the 1947-48 war, consists of three small patches of land along the then Syrian-Israeli border a total of 66.5 square kilometers populated by both Arab and Israeli villagers. According to the General Armistice Agreement of 1949, sovereignty over this area was to be determined at a later date, in the context of an
