When President Donald Trump at 12:50 on a Thursday afternoon tweeted it was “time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” the average world citizen said a collective “huh?” Israel captured two-thirds of the strategic plateau from Syria in 1967 during the Six-Day War—and no one has seriously contested its control in more than 50 years.
The Golan was an afterthought until Day 5 of that war when Israeli Defense Forces, surmising their northern flank needed protection from Syria’s Soviet-backed forces, suddenly opened a front no one expected Israel to secure. Syria’s minister of defense, the father of current President Bashar al-Assad, gave his troops an order no Israeli has likely forgotten: “Strike the enemy’s settlements, turn them into dust, pave the Arab roads with the skulls of the Jews.”
Unlike then-foes Egypt and Jordan, Syria has never made peace with Israel. The United Nations considers the Golan Heights “occupied” territory, but for Israel it’s a strategic buffer between sworn enemies. The barrier is made more necessary now eight years into a war inside Syria that Assad also has refused to end through a negotiated peace process.
The last time I visited the Golan Heights, in 2017, Israel by all appearances had beaten its swords into plowshares. Groves of mangoes and avocados compete with orchards of apples and pears. Hothouses vie for hillsides with vineyards making some of Israel’s best wines. All of it supplements agricultural exports—for Europeans and Middle East neighbors who make it ritual to condemn Israel’s occupation of the Golan.
Playing politics with contested territory may help with voters, but drawing…
