By Dogan Akman
The Facts:
- Prior to the 1967 war Syrian gunners at the Golan Heights were periodically terrorising both Arab and Jewish Israelis communities in the valley below.
- In 1967, while Israel was peacefully minding its own business, Syrians, along with their allies, launched a war to destroy Israel. They lost the war and Israel conquered the Heights.
- In 1973, Syrians, un-chastened by their defeat in 1973, once again declared war on Israel, to recover the Heights and to destroy Israel. Unfortunately, once again they failed miserably.
- From 1967 to the present, over 52 years, Syria seriously refused to negotiate in good faith a peace treaty with Israel within the framework of U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338.
- Syria has been assisting and collaborating actively with Hezbollah and Iran to put them in a position to try to destroy Israel.
- After 52 years, President Trump decided that the situation being what it is on the ground that it was time to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Heights.
In 49 – 67 Syria insisted on keeping her 1948 conquests of the strips between the 1923 Franco-British Convention frontier and the R. Jordan in the peace attempts after 1967 particularly after 1973 persisted in wanting to take back these conquests – so Syria itself has punctured its own slogans about not transferring territory as a result of war. On a historic and legal point territories are transferred in the deeds of the peace treaties after but not by the hostilities – though they impose a certain force majeure on the transaction.