Israel, Claiming Its Own

"The Six-Day War involved three distinct battlefronts, tied together by a shared desire on the part of the surrounding Arab states to eliminate Israel and erase the shame of their defeat 19 years earlier when they failed to destroy the nascent Jewish state."

"Egypt, the largest Arab state with a population of 31 million, massed troops on its border with Israel and imposed a naval blockade of Israel’s southern port, an act of war. Confronted with these aggressive moves, and the Arab leaders' promises to destroy the Jewish state, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against the Egyptian army and airforce. Egypt’s air force was quickly crippled, and a well-executed Israeli ground offensive routed the Egyptian forces in Gaza and the Sinai peninsula in four days."

"Buoyed by false reports of Egyptian success, Jordan initiated offensive actions against Israel from the eastern portion of Jerusalem and from lands it occupied west of the Jordan river (the West Bank). Israeli forces responded by attacking Jordanian military positions. After a three days of fierce fighting, especially in and around Jerusalem, Israeli forces defeated the Jordanians and gained control of all of Jerusalem as well as the West Bank, the historical heartland of the Jewish people known to Israelis as Judea and Samaria."

"Following an air attack by the Syrians on the first day of the war, Israel dealt a shattering blow to the Syrian air force. Hostilities continued in the days that followed, and on fifth day of the war, the Israelis mustered enough forces to remove the Syrian threat from the Golan Heights. This difficult operation was completed the following day, bringing the active phase of the war to a close."

An Israeli soldier in the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur of 1973 © Getty

One attempt after another by massed and co-ordinated Arab armies failed to dislodge Israel from the Middle East. The 1967 war imposed upon Israel by Egypt, Syria and Jordan selecting the most holy day in the Judaic religious calendar when the Jewish population would be observing the traditional High Holiday Day of Atonement took Israel by surprise, as it was meant to do. But the country had a goal of its own, to survive by any means, and survive it did, the memory of the Holocaust still fresh in the collective memory of its fighting troops.

Post-war Israel finally surrendered the Sinai, releasing it back to Egypt, despite the massive infrastructure funding it had expended in the peninsula, in exchange for something infinitely more precious to Israel; peace with its largest neighbour. To Jordan it extended the courtesy of control over the Muslim religious sites in east Jerusalem, despite that Israel's most sacred areas of its religious heritage are also located there. Mindful of Syria's penchant for bombing Israel from the Golan Heights, Israel's possession of the heights gained it an obvious protective advantage.

"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability."
U.S. President Donald Trump

"If we’re going to talk about Syria, I think it’s important for me to thank President Trump for recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights."
"It’s so significant in historical terms because 52 years ago we acquired that territory in a defensive war. There’s one thing to achieve a military victory, which our brave soldiers did. It’s another thing to translate that military victory into a diplomatic victory. It took us 52 years to do that, and I think it will formally be declared, that diplomatic victory, tomorrow at the White House, and the people of Israel are very grateful to President Trump."
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer

Israeli tanks in action on the Golan Heights during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war © AFP

Time and again Syria threatened to take back the Golan Heights from Israel. Israel has stated its willingness to return the Heights to Syria, in exchange for a peace agreement. That, despite settlement on the Heights, massive investment and pride in having taken it from an avowed enemy who, along with Egyptian and Jordanian cohorts intended to destroy Israel. Of the three, two decided post-war to sign peace agreements with Israel. Syria remained the holdout. Imagine now, signing a peace agreement with a tyrannical murderer with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Syrians on his hands.

How could trust and neighbourly reliance ever be established with such a vicious monster? Just as well that even its remotest contemplation would never become a reality. Arab states may be prepared to relent and re-admit Syria to the Arab League, shrugging off Bashar al-Assad's Shiite Alawite legacy of slaughter and destruction in a sectarian war with the help of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its subordinate Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist militias, but it's a stretch too far for a democratic nation to confer legitimacy on such a monstrous tyrant.

FILE Photo: An Israeli soldiers stands guard at an outpost in the Golan Heights.   AFP

The 500-square-mile territory that Israel controls is Israel's by right of defence of its tiny territory against violently invading armies who despite their numbers and the conviction of their hatred against Jews were unable to dislodge the Jewish nation from its heritage landscape. While Syria spent the half-century since Israel's successful defence of its Middle East presence and subsequent annexation of the Golan Heights, demanding its return, Israel made its own demands in exchange; a peace agreement.

In the final analysis, the Golan Heights is Israel's, and Israelis in general hold it to be so. The Knesset annexed the territory by law in 1981 and still negotiations continued; overtures to Syria to exchange the Heights for peace. Until the Syrian civil war intervened and the Syrian Assad regime demonstrated convincingly that no 'agreements' with such a regime could be tolerated. Iran now co-rules Syria, the regime becoming as much a proxy as Hezbollah and Iranian-linked Shiite militias.

As far as the international community is concerned, nothing has changed. They contend that the Golan Heights must be returned to Syria, in reflection of 1967 'borders' the international community approves of as the demarcation line between Israel and its neighbourly neighbours. They might believe in the simple utility of "land for peace", but Israel has some very notable examples of how well that works; Gaza an outstanding example of a unilateral effort that went nowhere.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967   Getty Images