The Golan Heights: Israel's Case for Sovereignty

The conventional argument about the Golan Heights sounds simple: Israel captured Syrian territory in 1967, extended Israeli law to it in 1981, and therefore its sovereignty violates international law.

But the history is considerably more complicated.

In today's Middle East Brief, Avi Kaner goes back before Israel and Syria even existed as independent countries, examining the Ottoman era, the British and French mandates, the 1948 war, and the crucial 1949 Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement, which explicitly stated that the armistice lines had "no relation whatsoever to ultimate territorial arrangements."

The episode examines:

• How Britain and France originally drew the mandate-era boundary
• Why the 1949 Israel-Syria armistice was not a final peace settlement
• Eighteen years of Syrian hostility and attacks from the Golan
• Israel's capture of the Golan during the 1967 Six-Day War
• UN Security Council Resolution 242 and its call for "secure and recognized boundaries"
• Syria's attempt to retake the Golan during the 1973 Yom Kippur War
• Israel's extension of its law, jurisdiction, and administration to the Golan in 1981
• The prevailing international position and Israel's competing historical, security, and legal arguments
• U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan in 2019
• Nearly sixty years of Israeli communities, agriculture, businesses, tourism, and life on the Golan

The international legal dispute is real. But so is Israel's historical and security case.

The Golan Heights are part of Israel, and Israel should make its case confidently and proudly.