Work on Golan wind turbines that sparked unrest expected to resume next week 

Controversial construction work on wind turbines in the Golan Heights is expected to resume next week, despite continued opposition by the area’s Druze community.

Members of the community held fiery mass protests against the project in June, leading the government to halt the work. But negotiations have not borne fruit.

Construction is first expected to resume on turbines that are farthest from the protesting communities, in the apparent hope of avoiding a repeat of June’s discord.

The Prime Minister’s Office said that “there is still an attempt to reach an agreement… the efforts are ongoing.” Nevertheless, “as a first step, there has been a decision to renew some of the turbine work.”

According to Kan news, Netanyahu is concurrently seeking to secure various benefits for parts of the Druze community in order to entice compromise on the issue, but protesters are threatening to renew demonstrations if the work resumes.

“We are prepared for a struggle and if we need to, we will make sacrifices,” a protest leader was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, police are preparing for the possibility of renewed clashes once construction starts up again.

“The freeze of the wind turbine construction in the Golan Heights must continue,” Sheikh Muafak Tarif, the leader of the Israeli Druze community, was quoted saying by the Ynet news site.

Sheikh Tarif said that one expected proposal, to provide more funding for Druze municipalities, will not solve the issue. “That is an amendment to a previous budget decision that the Druze municipalities have a right to in any case. That’s it. The attempt to connect construction on the Golan Heights to the funds is wrong and infuriating. These are two totally separate issues.”

The project was originally halted in late June following raucous protests. Sheikh Tarif warned at the time that the government must stop work on the wind turbines near the town of Majdal Shams or face “a reaction the country has hitherto not seen,” and called on the prime minister to seek an arrangement that would be acceptable to Druze residents.

The mass protests against the wind farms devolved into riots in June, with Druze demonstrators burning tires and hurling rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails at massive police forces securing the area. Twelve police officers were wounded, as were eight demonstrators – four of them seriously, including one from gunfire.

When the project was halted, the Prime Minister’s Office originally said it would restart no later than August 1.

In a letter previously sent by Netanyahu’s military secretary Avi Gil to Energix, the company behind the project, the developers were asked to delay continued construction until the start of August.

Energix is seemingly willing to wait a while longer in the hope that the issue can be resolved, but if the state continues to block the project it could be opening itself up to a demand for compensation, with the company already having invested some NIS 500 million ($133 million).

Israel has sought to veer its energy production increasingly toward clean methods, with wind power a critical component of those plans. The Energy Ministry has said in the past that the Golan Heights, with its high altitude and windy conditions, is an optimal location for wind farms.

The plan has angered Druze villagers who see the project as a threat to their agrarian way of life, an encroachment on ancestral lands and a solidification of what they view as Israel’s occupation of the territory.

They contend that the giant, soaring poles and the infrastructure needed to construct them will impede their ability to work their plots. They also say the turbines will disturb the almost sacred bond they feel to their land, which is passed down by generation and where families go for fresh air and green space.

Landowners who signed lease agreements with Energix say they weren’t made aware of the potential implications of having turbines on their plot. They say they were tempted by hefty sums into signing what they describe as draconian leases that, coupled with a boycott on the company imposed by influential religious leaders, have made many want to withdraw.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed the territory in 1981 – a move that was not internationally recognized until the administration of former US president Donald Trump did so in 2019.

Omer Sharvit contributed reporting.