Construction work at a controversial wind farm continued on Thursday after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir reportedly overruled Israeli Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai, who wanted to freeze work on the project following protests and unrest by Druze residents of the Golan Heights.
According to several reports, during the protests the police initially ordered work on the wind turbines to stop, but overturned this decision and allowed work to continue.
The Israeli police issued a statement denying the reports and saying that such a decision rests solely with the political establishment.
In a statement, Ben Gvir of the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party said he had told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the work “must go ahead”.
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“In any case, it was not planned to continue the work during the holiday, which takes place on Tuesday, but we must not give in to violence and stop the work before the holiday,” he said.
Walla news site reported that Shabtai believes the work should be halted at least until after the Eid al-Adha holiday next week, but Ben Gvir told the outlet that “a surrender is a surrender even for a week.” .”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (right) and Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai at the Israel Police Independence Day ceremony at the Israel Police Headquarters in Jerusalem on April 20, 2023. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeted that “to capitulate to the violence and anarchy of a handful of extremist and violent Druze in the Golan Heights (much unlike the majority of the Druze community in the Galilee) and halt work to build the turbines would be a failure of the rule of law.” and must not be accepted.”
Smotrich of the far-right Religious Zionism party said he gave his full support to Ben Gvir and urged Netanyahu to do the same.
Senior defense officials told Haaretz that Ben Gvir had urged construction work to move ahead, despite intelligence assessments predicting violence could ensue.
Ben Gvir and Shabtai – who are known to have a fractious relationship with the minister reportedly deciding not to extend the police chief’s term as usual – were due to meet with Druze leaders later on Thursday. Netanyahu’s office said he met with a Druze spiritual leader on Wednesday afternoon as officials attempted to defuse the situation.
Thousands of Druze residents of the Golan Heights protested and rioted against the construction of a new wind farm near the town of Majdal Shams on Tuesday and Wednesday, burning tires and hurling rocks, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails at massive police forces securing the area.
Twelve police officers were injured. Eight demonstrators were injured – four seriously, one by gunfire.
The protests took place in several places. Police said crowds of people blocked roads and tried to storm the police post in the town of Mas’ade, with some using live fire.
Israel has sought to increasingly shift its energy production to clean methods, with wind power being a key part of those plans. The Department of Energy has stated in the past that the Golan Heights, with its high altitude and windswept valleys, is an optimal location for wind farms.
But the plan has angered Druze villagers, who see the project as a threat to their agricultural way of life, an encroachment on their ancestral lands and a solidification of what they see as the Israeli occupation of the territory.
A wind turbine station in the Golan Heights, June 20, 2023. (Ayal Margolin/Flash90)
They claim that the huge, towering pylons and the infrastructure needed to build them would affect their ability to farm their plots. They also say the turbines would destroy the almost sacred bond they feel with their land, passed down from generation to generation and where families seek fresh air and green spaces.
Landowners who have signed leases with Energix, the company behind the project, say they were not informed of the potential impact of turbines on their property. They say large sums of money have lured them into signing draconian leases which, combined with a boycott of the company by influential religious leaders, have prompted many to pull out.
Energix on Thursday claimed without evidence that the protests were fueled by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“Pro-Syrian nationalist ideologies are leading a handful of opponents working to prevent the establishment of a national project by the State of Israel on the grounds that it will be established on occupied Syrian territory,” the company said in a statement to Walla.
“It is unacceptable that Syrian and pro-Syrian extremists and instigators led by President Assad … are threatening the population while instilling fear in private landowners who have a legal contract with the company to build the project,” Energix reportedly said.
In statements Tuesday and Wednesday, police said all dealings were legal and all payments had been made, and condemned the “violent and violent” behavior of the rioters.
Members of the Druze community set fire to tires as they protest against an Israeli wind turbine project planned on agricultural land near the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights June 21, 2023. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the territory in 1981 – a move that only received international recognition in 2019 when the administration of former US President Donald Trump did so.
The 26,000 Druze in the Golan, who belong to an offshoot of Islam, speak Hebrew and have Israeli residency status that gives them the right to travel and work freely. The area is also home to about 22,000 Israeli Jews and is a popular destination for Israeli tourists.
But most Druze residents have chosen not to take up Israeli citizenship — meaning they don’t vote in national elections and therefore have no elected representatives in the Knesset — and many still feel inextricably linked to Syria, despite that more and more people are slowly changing, more Druze are silently applying for citizenship.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.