September 29, 1923
Under border designations for states drawn up primarily by Britain and France after World War I, the Golan Heights are put under the control of the new state of Syria instead of being included with the British Mandate for Palestine.
Over the next two decades, Zionists make concerted efforts to buy large portions of the area but are denied by the French, who hold sway over the Arab government in Damascus. Syria and the French fear that such land sales to Zionists will unleash a British effort to have the Golan Heights moved to their control in Palestine. But Zionist negotiations over the Golan Heights with Syrian tribal leaders help Jewish leaders in the Yishuv maintain positive connections and relations with important Syrian Arab politicians well into the 1940s.
