Premier Levi Eshkol expressed the hope, during a weekend tour of newly-established defense settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, that the “defense wall being built here will be both green and strong.” Speaking at a Nahal outpost, the Premier declared that those who “remember the 20 years of suffering by settlements in the valley below the Golan Heights can appreciate our position here as a defense wall against all kinds of evil.” Jewish settlements were regularly shelled by Syrians from 1948, when the War of Independence ended, to last June when Israel seized the Golan Heights.
The Premier and a group which included officers of the northern command, and Agriculture Minister Haim Gvati, toured the settlements being developed by Nahal, the paramilitary agricultural organization. They were told that combined teams of the Agriculture Ministry and Defense units were carrying out weather, soil and water studies on the Heights.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
