The Golan Heights is the closest place to the border with Lebanon. It was the site of numerous conflicts between Arabs and Israelis. The Yom Kippur war was between the Syrians and Egyptians, and Israel was out numbered 6,000 to 20,000. When the attack happened, everyone was in the synagogue and everything was shut down. They sounded the sirens to get in the bunkers. The Israeli forces tried to hold the lines of a border road between Israel and Syria until the reserves came. There was a UN separations of forces and Syria told them to get out.

It got to the point where out of 350 tanks, 240 were dysfunctional, so that left 50 operative tanks against a huge armor column. Eventually there were only 25 tanks left. God came through and they were able to hold the front until the reserves came.

It is important to understand how Israel came to be after the Holocaust through the Balfour Declaration. This document recognized the Jewish right to self declaration of the Jews in their homeland. Britain was able to do this because they held that territory. The Jews were able to settle anywhere including the Trans Jordan, making Palestinian settlements around Jerusalem illegal.

In order to keep Israel safe, there were a lot of people undercover, such as Eli Cohen, who infiltrated enemy territory to spy on them.

The West Bank is divided into three areas: Area A, which is under Palestinian control, Area B, which is the area of the West Bank under Israeli security, and Area C, which is under Israeli control and included the road we were travelling on.

At the end of the night, we had a discussion on the important Middle Eastern countries in the region. This was mostly review for me because I studied it in undergrad.