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Upper Galilee
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The Upper Galilee is a geographical-political term in use since the end of the Second Temple period, originally referring to a mountainous area overlapping the present northern Israel and southern Lebanon, its borders being the Litani river in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Beit HaKerem valley and Lower Galilee in the south and the Jordan river and Hula Valley in the east.
In present-day Israeli terminology, the term is mainly used in reference to the part which is under Israeli sovreignty.
Geography
Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Balfour Declaration in which the British Empire promised to create "A Jewish National Home" in Palestine, the Zionist Movement presented to the Versailles Peace Conference a document calling for including in the British Mandate of Palestine the entire territory up to the Litani river - with a view to this becoming eventually part of the future Jewish state.
In the event, only less than half this area came to be actually included in British Mandatory Palestine, the final border being influenced both by diplomatic manouverings and struggles between Btitain and France and by fighting on the ground, especially the March 1920 battle of Tel Hai.
For a considerable time after the border was defined so to make the northern portion of the territory concerned part of the French mandated territory which became Lebanon, many Zionist geographers - and Israeli geographers in the state's early years - continued to speak of "The Upper Galilee" as being "the northern sub-area of the Galilee region of Israel and Lebanon".
Under this definition, "The Upper Galilee" covers an area spreading over 1,500 kmē, about 700 in Israel and the rest in Lebanon.
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Encyclopedia
The Upper Galilee is a geographical-political term in use since the end of the Second Temple period, originally referring to a mountainous area overlapping the present northern Israel and southern Lebanon, its borders being the Litani river in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Beit HaKerem valley and Lower Galilee in the south and the Jordan river and Hula Valley in the east.
In present-day Israeli terminology, the term is mainly used in reference to the part which is under Israeli sovreignty.
Geography
Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Balfour Declaration in which the British Empire promised to create "A Jewish National Home" in Palestine, the Zionist Movement presented to the Versailles Peace Conference a document calling for including in the British Mandate of Palestine the entire territory up to the Litani river - with a view to this becoming eventually part of the future Jewish state.
In the event, only less than half this area came to be actually included in British Mandatory Palestine, the final border being influenced both by diplomatic manouverings and struggles between Btitain and France and by fighting on the ground, especially the March 1920 battle of Tel Hai.
For a considerable time after the border was defined so to make the northern portion of the territory concerned part of the French mandated territory which became Lebanon, many Zionist geographers - and Israeli geographers in the state's early years - continued to speak of "The Upper Galilee" as being "the northern sub-area of the Galilee region of Israel and Lebanon".
Under this definition, "The Upper Galilee" covers an area spreading over 1,500 kmē, about 700 in Israel and the rest in Lebanon. This included the highland region, located in South Lebanon and known in Arabic as Jabal Amel, which was at for some time known in Hebrew as "The Lebanese Galilee". As deined in geogrpahical terms, "it is separated from the Lower Galilee by the Beit HaKerem valley; its mountains are taller and valleys are deeper than those in the Lower Galilee; its tallest peak is Har Meron at 1,208 m above sea level. Safed is one of the major cities in this region".
Historically, since this area was never controlled by the Jews and did not have significant connections to Jewish nationalism other than geography, it was never considered within the bounds of "the heartland of historical Israel." And even today is not considered part of Greater Israel in the discourse of the Israeli right wing.
In recent decades, however, this usage had vitually disappeared from the general Israeli discourse, the term "Upper Galilee" being used solely in reference to the part located in Israel. In paradoxical way, exactly the fact of South Lebanon being continually under Israeli military occupation between 1982 and 2000 helped increase Israelis' feeling of alienation from this area.
Israeli soldiers stationed there and tasked with fighting guerrilas from Hizbullah and smaller Lebanese organizations felt themselves to be in a foreign and hostile land, a feeling shared by their families and eventually the Isralei public at large. No Israeli political grouping, even on the far right, ever propose annexation of the territory or establishing Israeli settlements in it.
On the other hand, "Upper Galilee" became well-established as the name for the northern portion of Israel. Using the same name also to designate part of the territory of a hostile country inhabited by staunch enemies would have seemed strange, whatever the geopraphical considerations; consequntly, use of "Upper Galilee" as including also the part on the Lebanese side of the border has completely dispparead from the general Israeli usage.
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