Higher Than Ever: Israel on the Snow-Capped Hermon

by Haggai Huberman, State of Israel historian, translated by Hillel Fendel.

Taking quick advantage of the overthrow of Syrian dictator Assad two weeks ago, Israeli military forces captured what some refer to as the Syrian Hermon, the highest of three very strategic peaks in the Hermon range. Israel is currently in the midst of a rushed and complex logistical operation to build army camps on the summit before the first snowstorm hits. The plan is to remain there until at least the end of the winter, if not for the foreseeable future. State of Israel historian Haggai Huberman, providing a historic overview, explains that the time has come to decide how to refer to this historic and important mountain – but certainly not as "the Syrian Hermon."

On June 11, 1967, a few days into the Six Day War, the headline of the HaTzofeh newspaper blared out: "Syrian Heights in the Hands of IDF Forces." The paper, and others, apparently found it hard to break the Israeli habit of the previous 19 years, since Israel's War of Independence, of referring to the area by the name of the ruling entity.

But within a very short time, the original name – the Golan Heights – made its way back into our lexicon. On June 12, the left-wing Al HaMishmar featured an article that referred to the area as the Golan Heights, noting that it had been called "the Syrian Heights."

Just a few days later, another story referred to the Golan Heights, and by 1981, when Israel extended its sovereignty over the area, the name of the legislation was "the Golan Law" – certainly not "the Syrian Heights law."

I was reminded of this nomenclature change this week with the reports of our capture of the Syrian Hermon (pronounced Hĕrmone). Many people, quietly but insistently, are demanding that the Hebrew term be used, and that "Syria" be taken out of the "Syrian Heights."

Hebrew linguist Dr. Avshalom Kor has proposed that our new Hermon be termed "the Hermon Crown" – a phrase taken from a poem written by none other than Ze'ev Jabotinsky. He wrote it when he was in the British Akko prison with his Haganah comrades for their role in protecting the Jewish community in the Old City of Jerusalem during the pogroms of 1920. The poem ends: "We are in captivity, but our hearts are directed towards Tel Chai in the north; we will yet have the Crown of the Hermon."

This of course referred to the entire Hermon range, for no one then dreamed that it would ever be divided between a Syrian entity and a Jewish entity less than 30 years later. The term "Hermon Crown" came into popular use in the Hebrew language. On April 23, 1925, Jewish National Fund leader Yosef Weitz, whose views were much to the left of Jabotinsky even as he engaged in the purchase of lands for Jews up through the first years of the State, wrote:

"I walked after the plow through a long furrow, back and forth. To my north, the crown of Mt. Hermon gleamed, and to my south, the mountain tops were tinged with blue and red..."

Another Land of Israel lover and expert, Ze'ev Vilnai, later came up with another name for the Hermon: Sion. It was taken directly from Deuteronomy 4,48, which states that the border of the Promised Land ran from "Aro'er on the Arnon bank, up to Mt. Sion, that is Hermon." In his work "Love Your Land as Yourself," Vilnai wrote about one of several tours he led on the mountain:

"At sunset – and the sunsets are amazing from the heights of the Hermon – we reached the sion, the highest summit of the Hermon range. Though it was summertime, we still found fields of snow and ice, especially on the northern side. We had a great time throwing snowballs; for some of the hikers, it was the first time they had ever seen snow. On the sion [summit] is a small cave, where we spent the night… As a memento of the occasion of our visit, we planted a national flag on the summit before we left. We then steeply descended from the sion to the village of Hatzbia [now in southeastern Lebanon]…"

What could be more appropriate than to call the highest point of the Hermon range Sion, a Biblical word related to the Hebrew si, meaning climax and top?

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Syrians briefly captured the one Hermon peak that had been in Israeli hands. However, the IDF soon recaptured it, and also the other two peaks, including what was known as the Syrian Hermon. [Israel withdrew from them after the war ended.]

An article in Al HaMishmar related the events: "The IDF Golani Brigade troops took upon themselves a very difficult mission. While the Paratroopers were flown to the Syrian Hermon in helicopters, some four kilometers from the Israeli Hermon, the Golani fighters had to break through frontally against well-prepared Syrian commando units… Israel's recapture of the Israeli Hermon, as well as its taking of the Si HaHermon and the Syrian Hermon, crowned an amazing IDF operation, which included heroism on the part of every single IDF soldier who took part."

On June 24, 1974, when Israel and Syria carried out the Separation of Forces agreement that ended the Yom Kippur War – and which came to an end after over 50 years two weeks ago – the Maariv newspaper reported: "Tomorrow at 3 PM the IDF will hand over to the United Nations the northernmost area, termed the Syrian Hermon, as well as the Kuneitra area…"

Now, with the return of the IDF to the Hermon summit, it would be appropriate to erase the name "Syrian Hermon," and return to use one of the Hebrew names – either Sion or Keter (Crown) HaHermon.

Made in Gaza

by Dr. Meir Seidler, senior lecturer in Jewish Philosophy in Bar Ilan and Ariel Universities, translated by Hillel Fendel.

A British research center reveals how the Ministry of Health in Gaza manipulates and falsifies data on Hamas and Gaza casualties – the very data on which the international community and the International Criminal Court in The Hague rely when condemning Israel. 

Following the IDF's three-week long Operation Cast Lead military campaign that began in December 2008, the Hamas-run Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza reported that 1,300 Gazans had been killed, of which only 48 were Hamas members. At the same time, an IDF report noted 1,166 Gazan deaths, including 709 Hamas terrorists.

Ultimately, the Hamas administration was forced to change its version and admit that some 600 to 700 Hamas terrorists had been killed in the operation. The correction was published at the time by the Haaretz newspaper, but did not receive much attention in the press.

During the weekly violent Gazan protests between March 2018 and December 2019, known by Hamas as the Great March of Return, the Gazan MoH reported 55 protesters killed on one day in clashes with IDF forces at the border. This figure was adopted in a report by OCHA (the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), leading to a sharp condemnation of Israel by UN Secretary-General Guterres and a demand from the head of OCHA to prosecute those responsible for killing "innocent civilians." However, two days later, Salah al-Bardawil, a senior member of Hamas's political bureau, was asked sharply by a PA journalist why Hamas sent civilians to die at the border. Al-Bardawil answered that 50 of the 55 killed were actually Hamas fighters. This admission that the official Gaza numbers were false changed nothing in the UN's accusations against Israel.

These are just two examples cited in a report published a few days ago by a Middle Eastern affairs think-tank operating under the auspices of the conservative British research institute HJS (Henry Jackson Society).

But it's not the past that is the main point of the HJS report, which is entitled: "Questionable Counting: Analyzing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza." It is rather the current war in Gaza on which the report chiefly focuses. This comprehensive survey, the first of its kind since the war broke out close to 15 months ago, relies on a very large number of sources and research institutes, including the Washington-based ISW (Institute for the Study of War). It presents and analyzes many statistics and data, and provides conclusions. The report's data is verifiable by the sources cited in the notes, and in fact, I randomly checked some of the information and found that all of it was reliable.

I would like to note that behind the dry numbers of Gazans killed in the current war stand, as in every war, some people who are in fact innocent, as well as many children. Even after the atrocities that we so painfully experienced on that infamous Oct. 7^th, and even after the resulting cheers of glee that we saw in Gaza, I personally am sorry for the death of every Gazan who did not cheer, as well as for the children who died.

The primary feature of this report is the finding that the Hamas-run MoH has "systematically inflated the death toll [among Gazans] by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children, and even including individuals who died before the conflict began." This is no accident, but is rather the official policy of Hamas, as evidenced by a document revealed as early as a decade ago by the Hamas interior ministry. The instructions there were very clear: 'Whoever was killed and became a shahid [holy martyr] will be counted as a Gazan or Palestinian citizen… When describing those killed in Israeli attacks against Gaza, do not forget to always add that they were 'innocent citizens.' In conversations with friends from other countries, do not praise the [fallen] military commanders regarding their military successes."

The overall picture is that Hamas is reporting nearly 40,000 total deaths, while Israel states that of these, nearly half were Hamas terrorists. (American intelligence sources say that Hamas deaths numbered only 12-14,000).

The lack of differentiation between terrorist deaths and civilian deaths is particularly blatant given the fact that the official Hamas numbers do specify how many men, women, and children were killed – even if not quite accurately. For instance, among the women killed in one particular month, were more than 100 whose names were given as Muhammed… Many of those originally listed as aged 18 and above suddenly were counted as having been 17 years old – thus increasing the number of dead "children."

An interesting anomaly that arises from the statistics is listed on Dec. 5, 2023, when the MoH reported a total of 16,248 deaths in Gaza. Some 1,353 women and children were reported killed on one specific day – way more than the total number of deaths that day, which was only 1,041.

The report notes the following brazen attempt to deceptively increase the numbers of dead: More than 5,000 people who died natural deaths during the course of the year of the war were counted as having been killed by Israel! Concrete examples of Arabs felled by cancer are presented in the HJC report as having been killed by Israel. So are Arabs killed in criminal murder cases – and even those who were killed as a result of the commandeering of humanitarian aid deliveries by Hamas.

And get this: Hundreds of Gazans were killed by the more than 1,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets that didn't quite reach their targets and instead exploded inside Gaza – and they are counted as having been killed by Israel! The report cites the famous case of the Al-Ahli Hospital that was hit by a rocket. When the rocket was thought to have originated in Israel, Hamas reported that 471 were killed, but when the truth was learned that it was a mistakenly-fired Hamas rocket, the reported numbers went down considerably.

Fake Media Reporting

The report also examined some 1,400 English-language articles written about the war for eight leading websites between February and May 2024. It found that 98% of them relied on the Hamas MoH stats – and of these, 19% did not even mention their source. Only 5% relied (also) on IDF numbers.

Fewer than 2% of the articles that used data from the MoH indicated that the data was questionable and could not be verified. In contrast, half of the articles that mentioned IDF-provided data noted that its numbers were questionable. Only 16% of the articles noted that the MoH does not distinguish between civilians and fighters.

It is hard to say that we were surprised by the report's findings, but for the rest of the world, such a report by a prestigious think-tank such as the HJC is of supreme importance. It is incumbent upon the State of Israel to use it proactively in its hasbara (PR) efforts around the world.