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An Israeli renewable energy company is suing a human rights group over its investigation of a wind farm the firm plans to build in the occupied Golan Heights with government backing.<\/p>\nAn Israeli renewable energy company is suing a human rights group over its investigation of a wind farm the firm plans to build in the occupied Golan Heights with government backing.<\/p>\n
Al-Marsad, the group which Energix is suing, has found<\/a> that the Tel Aviv-based company\u2019s wind turbine project violates the indigenous Syrian population\u2019s right to self-determination. The scheme also serves to strengthen Israel\u2019s control over the territory.<\/p>\n The group says Energix\u2019s filing against it sets \u201can extraordinarily dangerous precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n Along with 15 other organizations, the group is urgently requesting that United Nations experts \u201cintervene immediately to protect human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan.\u201d<\/p>\n The Energix lawsuit is the first to be brought forward by an Israeli firm under Israel\u2019s anti-boycott law<\/a> to suppress the activity of a human rights group.<\/p>\n That law, enacted<\/a> in 2011, imposes sanctions on groups advocating boycotts of Israel or its settlements in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights.<\/p>\n Energix also alleges that Al-Marsad has engaged in \u201cslander\u201d by describing how its energy project violates international law in a report<\/a> published in January.<\/p>\n Entrenching occupation<\/strong><\/p>\n The Golan Heights<\/a> is Syrian territory captured by Israel during the 1967 war. Approximately 340 Syrian villages and farms in the Golan Heights were destroyed by Israel<\/a>, which built Jewish settlements in their place.<\/p>\n Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights violate international law, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilian population to the territory it occupies.<\/p>\n Some 26,000 Israeli settlers<\/a> enjoy control over 95 percent of the Golan \u2013 a landmass of 1,860 square kilometers<\/a> representing 1 percent of Syria\u2019s total territory. Approximately the same number of Syrians have control over the rest of the Golan\u2019s land.<\/p>\n After Israel claimed to annex the Golan Heights in 1981, the UN Security Council declared<\/a> the move \u201cnull and void and without international legal effect.\u201d<\/p>\n Energix seeks to build \u201can enormous energy project that would occupy almost a quarter of the agricultural land\u201d that is still controlled by Syrians in the Golan, according to<\/a> Al-Marsad.<\/p>\n The project would severely restrict the expansion of Syrian communities. Nearby Israeli settlements have rejected smaller wind farm projects.<\/p>\n \u201cBy executing the project on native Syrian lands but seeking approval and validity through Israel\u2019s regulatory scheme, Energix is supporting the human rights violations embedded in Israel\u2019s illegal and discriminatory occupation of the Golan,\u201d Al-Marsad states.<\/p>\n The group\u2019s investigation \u201cuncovered that the Syrians of the Golan are being lied to, manipulated and purposefully divided over the project by both the company advancing it and the Israeli government.\u201d<\/p>\n One-fifth of the Syrian population in the Golan Heights has signed a petition opposing the Energix project.<\/p>\n The turbines, which emit low-frequency sound waves and flickering, pose a health risk to nearby Syrian communities, particularly to people with epilepsy.<\/p>\n But \u201cmost concerning \u2026 is the risk Energix\u2019s project poses to Syrians\u2019 cultural life in the Golan,\u201d according to<\/a> a paper by Al-Marsad and Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group.<\/p>\n \u201cIndigenous Syrians are deeply attached to their ancestral land,\u201d the groups add. \u201cThis attachment is strong despite Israel\u2019s repeated attempts to dispossess Syrians of their small plots.\u201d<\/p>\n Decades of occupation and discriminatory Israeli practices have \u201cdestroyed native Syrians\u2019 economic prosperity, especially in the agriculture sector,\u201d according to Al-Marsad\u2019s report from January.<\/p>\n Economic suffocation has made \u201cthe proposition of earning quick cash far more tempting\u201d to Syrians in the Golan than in nearby Israeli settlements that have rejected similar schemes.<\/p>\n The project will involve building and widening roads, clearing land, installing \u201c52 structures [with] the equivalent height of 64-story buildings,\u201d and a new underground electric line stretching 30 kilometers.<\/p>\n \u201cAll this will permanently disfigure the Golan and reshape its entire existence,\u201d Al-Marsad states.<\/p>\n Exploitation<\/strong><\/p>\n Israel has prevented occupied villages in the Golan from creating an independent energy utility system, forcing them to be permanently dependent on Israel for energy.<\/p>\n A local plan to develop a wind farm was stalled by the Israeli military in 2014, \u201caround the same time Energix began aggressively progressing\u201d its project, according to Al-Marsad.<\/p>\n The Energix project, meanwhile, has been fast-tracked by Israeli regulatory bodies.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael has prioritized developing natural resource-based industries\u201d in the territories it occupies \u201cbecause such industries are physically embedded in the land,\u201d Al-Marsad states.<\/p>\n Israel has accelerated gas and oil exploration in the Golan since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Israel prohibits Syrians from utilizing these same resources.<\/p>\n The energy produced by the Energix wind farm in the Golan Heights will be sold directly to the Israeli Electric Corporation and bring in an estimated yearly revenue of $38-44 million.<\/p>\n Energix \u201cwill only pay out about 1 percent of its profits to Syrian landowners,\u201d according to Al-Marsad\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cSimilar plans in Israel or Israeli settlements are said to have proposed to pay out as much as five times more,\u201d the group adds.<\/p>\n Energix\u2019s project in occupied Syrian villages exploits \u201ceconomic and legal instability that stems from occupation-based policies that discriminate against their ethnic background and national origin.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel will soon be exporting electricity to Europe through the EuroAsia Interconnector<\/a> project, due to be launched over the next decade. The project will directly connect Europe to Israel\u2019s illegal settlements built on occupied land, implicating<\/a> it in war crimes.<\/p>\n \u201cThis energy infrastructure integration further entrenches Israel\u2019s occupation and colonization,\u201d according to the paper by Al-Marsad and Al-Haq.<\/p>\n