evidence: Golan Heights: History & Overview [...] The Golan Heights Today [...] Ramat Hamagshimim, in what is now Syria. First Aliyah (1881-1903) immigrants established five small communities on this land, but were forced to leave by the Turks in 1898. The lands were farmed until 1947 by the Palestine Colonization Association and the Israel Colonization Association, when they were seized by the Syrian army. Most of the Golan Heights were included within Mandatory Palestine when the mandate was formally granted in 1922, but Britain ceded the area to France in the Franco-British Agreement of March 7, 1923. The Heights became part of Syria upon the termination of the French mandate in 1944. Zionists attempted to buy land in the area, but the French would not allow them to do so because of their concern that the British would then seek to take control of the Heights as part of the Palestine mandate.