By Dr. Adnan Bozan

I believe that what Dr. Farid Saadoun wrote in his article touches upon an important part of the truth, particularly in emphasizing that the Ghamr issue is not a matter that can be left to tribes, families, or individuals. Rather, it is a political, legal, and historical issue that can only be resolved through the state and its institutions. However, I differ with him in reducing the roots of this issue solely to successive Arab Syrian governments. In my view, the matter is older than that and extends beyond the limits of Syrian decision-making. It is connected to a regional context that took shape with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the modern Turkish state, as well as to the conflict that emerged over the Kurdish presence on both sides of the new borders. From that period onward, preventing the emergence of a contiguous Kurdish presence along Turkey’s southern border became part of regional security and political concerns. Within this context, the transformations that took place in the Syrian Jazira cannot be understood in isolation from the geopolitics of the Syrian-Turkish border, nor from successive attempts to reshape the demographic and political landscape of the region.

Here, two matters must be distinguished: on the one hand, the existence of a documented Syrian policy that subsequently took clear legal, administrative, and demographic forms; and, on the other, the geopolitical interpretation that views this policy as inseparable from the regional environment surrounding it. In my view, Turkish pressure regarding the Kurdish question was part of that environment, particularly because the borders established through the arrangements that followed the First World War were not merely geographical lines. They contributed to separating the Kurdish people and dividing their historic geographical continuum among the states of the region, while making the Kurdish presence in northern Syria directly connected to the Kurdish question and to Turkish national-security calculations. Consequently, what happened later in Syria should not be read as an isolated Syrian decision detached from its regional surroundings, but rather as part of a broader history of conflict between the centralized state and Kurdish presence and geography in the region, within a regional context in which the question of borders itself became a means of reshaping the political and demographic space of the Kurds.

From this perspective, the Arab Belt did not suddenly emerge in the 1970s. Rather, it was the outcome of a long accumulation of political, legal, and administrative measures. This process began with measures affecting the legal status of the Kurdish population, most notably the exceptional 1962 Hasakah census, enacted under Legislative Decree No. 93 during the presidency of Nazim al-Qudsi. The census resulted in large numbers of Kurds being stripped of Syrian citizenship and reclassified in special registers as “foreigners” or as unregistered persons. Human rights reports have documented that the census was conducted in a single day and that its consequences extended to subsequent generations, turning the question of citizenship into one of the most complex legal and political issues in the history of Syrian Kurds.

This was followed by the study prepared by Muhammad Talib Hilal, a security and intelligence document drafted in November 1963, which proposed reorganizing the border region along demographic, security, and national lines, and linked the Kurdish presence to what the authorities at the time regarded as a security and demographic problem. Later human rights sources documented that the Arab Belt project sought to establish an Arab-populated strip along the Turkish border, approximately ten to fifteen kilometers deep, extending across a broad area from Ras al-Ayn toward Dêrik (Al-Malikiyah), and westward from Ras al-Ayn toward Jarabulus. However, the implementation of the project did not extend continuously into the areas west of Tal Abyad, near the outskirts of Kobani. Thus, the issue gradually evolved from measures affecting citizenship, land registries, and land ownership into a broader project aimed at reshaping the demographic and geographic distribution of the region.

Yet here, too, we must avoid the mistake of placing the entire historical responsibility on the Arab governments alone, just as we must avoid the opposite mistake of absolving the local social structure of all responsibility. Some Kurdish feudal landlords and landowners played a role in weakening the position of the Kurdish peasantry, particularly during the periods associated with agrarian reform, expropriation, and land redistribution. In some cases, the Kurdish peasant was confronted not only by the state but also by unjust social and economic relations within his own community. This is a reality that the Kurdish political movement should not conceal if it seeks to write a serious and responsible history. Criticizing the state does not mean absolving certain local leaders and landowners of their social and historical responsibility, just as acknowledging this internal responsibility in no way exonerates the state from its discriminatory and racist policies.

From this perspective, the issue can be understood as a chain of interconnected policies: weakening the Kurdish presence, disrupting its legal status, followed by land expropriation or redistribution, then the establishment of new population settlements in Kurdish areas, ultimately leading to changes in part of the demographic structure of the border region. During the rule of Hafez al-Assad, the project took on a clearer form when groups of Arab peasants whose lands had been affected by the Euphrates Dam project were relocated and settled in parts of the Jazira as part of a policy associated with what became known as the “Arab Belt.” Human rights reports indicate that the state established villages and agricultural settlements in predominantly Kurdish areas and settled Arabs there, while the lands of a number of Kurdish landowners were confiscated or redistributed within the framework of these policies.

Here, a historical and moral paradox emerges that we must not overlook: the Arab peasants relocated to the Jazira were not necessarily the authors of the political project that created the Arab Belt. Indeed, many of them were themselves victims of state policy, having lost their original lands because they were submerged by the waters of the Euphrates Dam or because of the restructuring of agricultural ownership. Therefore, collectively holding the “Ghamr Arabs” responsible for state policy would be a political, moral, and legal mistake. Political and historical responsibility lies primarily with those who planned, decided upon, implemented, and redistributed the land—not with the peasant who found himself on new land after losing his original one.

Yet acknowledging the circumstances of the Ghamr Arab families does not, in turn, erase the rights of Kurdish landowners who lost their lands, nor does the passage of time constitute a means of extinguishing those rights. Here we reach the core of the legal question: it is not enough to ask who occupies the land today; we must ask how ownership was transferred, who originally held the right, under what legal basis the land was expropriated or redistributed, and whether the measure resulted from a general and impartial law or from an exceptional policy targeting a particular population group.

This is the distinction between de facto possession and legal title. A person may live on land for decades; his children may be born there and his parents may die there. Yet the length of residence alone does not determine the original ownership if the land came into his possession as a result of a previous political or administrative decision. At the same time, recognizing the historical right of the original owner does not automatically mean that the legal solution is the immediate eviction of those currently living on the land. Law does not operate according to the logic of historical revenge; it operates through establishing rights, determining responsibility, and arranging appropriate forms of remedy, compensation, and restitution according to the circumstances of each individual case.

This brings me to what I consider the more important question today: Why is the Ghamr issue being brought to the forefront now? And who benefits from raising it in this particular manner?

The issue has never disappeared from Kurdish political memory. It has remained present since its emergence because it created a complex problem in which agricultural ownership intersects with citizenship, land with identity, demography with security, and borders with regional conflict. What is new, however, is that the issue is emerging today during an extremely sensitive transitional period, at a time when Syria’s state structure, institutions, relations among its constituent communities, and the rights of its citizens are all being reconsidered. Therefore, reopening the file in principle is understandable and legitimate; it is the manner in which it is reopened that warrants serious political concern.

If the issue is transformed from a demand for rights into a tribal confrontation, and from a legal dispute over ownership into a Kurdish-Arab conflict, then we will have moved from attempting to address the consequences of past policies to reproducing those policies through new means. One of the most dangerous consequences of past policies was the use of land as an instrument of political and demographic conflict. The danger today is that land itself could become fuel for a new civil conflict.

I do not believe that the solution lies in expelling Arabs from their lands simply because they are Arabs. Nor do I believe that an Arab’s continued residence on land taken from its Kurdish owner nullifies the original owner’s rights. Rights are not determined by nationality, and ownership is not defined by ethnic identity. The legal question must be more rigorous: Who owned the land? What documents establish that ownership? How was ownership transferred? Was the expropriation carried out under a general and impartial law? Was compensation paid? Was redistribution conducted according to legal criteria? And were the measures part of a policy intended to alter the demographic structure of the region?

Once these questions have been answered, the process of remedy can begin: restoration of ownership where possible, fair compensation where restitution is impossible, the provision of alternative land in specific cases, or the adoption of legally grounded settlements that take the rights of all parties into account. Transforming the issue into a process of collective eviction or expulsion on ethnic grounds would not remedy the injustice; it would simply transfer the injustice from one group to another.

For this reason, the issue requires an independent national legal commission with clearly defined powers to review records of ownership, expropriation, and redistribution from the period of agrarian reform to the present day; to cross-reference land-registry records with historical and administrative documents; and to hear both the claims of the original rights holders and those of the Ghamr families. The work of such a commission must be based on one fundamental principle: no family should be condemned because it is Arab, and no Kurd should be deprived of his rights because he is Kurdish.

It is neither just to tell a Kurd to forget his land because decades have passed, nor just to tell an Arab to leave his home and land because the state that relocated him there pursued a political project. The state created the legal and political framework of the problem, and therefore bears a fundamental responsibility for addressing its consequences.

More dangerous still would be allowing tribes to become direct parties in imposing a solution. A tribe may advocate for the rights of its members, but it cannot become a land court, replace the judiciary, or grant or revoke ownership. A Kurdish tribe must not be allowed to decide to expel an Arab family, just as an Arab tribe must not prevent a Kurdish landowner from seeking legal remedy. Ownership is not determined by numbers, weapons, or social power; it is determined by legal title and competent institutions.

If weapons and tribal power enter this issue, it will move from a dispute over ownership to an ethnic conflict, and from an ethnic conflict to a social confrontation. In a highly sensitive border region, it could then become a component of a broader regional conflict. The Syrian Jazira is not isolated from its surroundings. It lies at a point where Syrian geography intersects with Turkish national-security concerns, the Iraqi border, and regional and international interests. Consequently, any civil conflict over land could rapidly transcend the boundaries of a local dispute.

Therefore, it is the political movement—not the tribes—that should transform this issue into a national matter; the state is responsible for establishing the legislative and executive framework for addressing it; and the judiciary and specialized committees are responsible for determining ownership and rights. There should not be one Kurdish justice and another Arab justice. There must be one Syrian justice system that examines documents, rights, and law rather than the nationality of the landowner.

In my view, the greatest mistake Kurdish forces could make today would be to turn the Ghamr issue into a confrontation with Arabs. That would, indirectly, shift the conflict from the political sphere that created the problem to the society that inherited its consequences. A Kurd seeking to reclaim his rights does not need hostility toward Arabs, just as an Arab seeking to preserve his dignity and security should not become a defender of a policy he did not create.

At its core, the issue is not: “Should we return the land to the Kurds or leave it to the Arabs?” This is the wrong way of framing the question from the outset. The right question is: “How can we restore the right to its rightful holders without creating a new victim?”

That is the difference between justice and revenge.

What happened in the Jazira requires reconciliation with history, but reconciliation does not mean forgetting injustice, just as restoring rights does not mean creating a new injustice. Transitional justice, if it is to have genuine meaning, cannot be based either on erasing memory or taking revenge on the present. It must instead be based on uncovering the truth, determining responsibility, restoring rights, providing reparations, and preventing the recurrence of the policies that produced the problem in the first place.

For this reason, if the Syrian state genuinely wishes to close the legacy of previous decades, it must open the file of the Arab Belt and the Ghamr lands within a clear national and legal framework; acknowledge the injustice inflicted upon the Kurds and address its legal and property-related consequences; while at the same time protecting the Ghamr families from becoming victims of a historical backlash for which they bear no responsibility.

As for the question of who benefits from raising the issue now, it should not lead us toward a ready-made conspiracy theory. Rather, it should lead us to a deeper political question: Who benefits from turning it into a Kurdish-Arab conflict? Any party seeking to derail a national resolution can find in this issue ideal material for reproducing division. Therefore, the most dangerous course would be to allow a political, legal, and historical issue to be transformed into a tribal one; or to allow the Kurdish right to land to become a pretext for expelling Arabs; or the Arab right to security to become a pretext for denying the Kurdish right.

The historical mistake was that the state used land to change politics and demographics; the new mistake would be to use politics, weapons, and tribal power to change the land once again.

The real solution begins when land becomes a matter recorded in state registers, rights are adjudicated before the courts, compensation is determined by legal decision, and dialogue takes place within political institutions rather than tribal arenas. Only then can we begin to close the chapter of the Arab Belt and the Ghamr lands justly, rather than reproduce it in another form. A state that seeks to overcome a history of discrimination cannot remedy an old injustice by creating a new one, nor can it build equal citizenship through a mindset of victor and vanquished. Justice alone can transform this issue from a time bomb into a historical matter capable of resolution.