Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be lauded for asking for America's recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in his talks with U.S. President Donald Trump. I do not know if the request will be answered, but the initiative is of great importance in and of itself. Up until now, we have grown used to diplomatic initiatives concerning the Golan Heights being nothing more than requests for Israeli secession of the area. The time has come for a diplomatic initiative for the international recognition of the annexation. Within the framework of security reparations, late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin demanded the same from the Americans in return for Israel's willingness to secede from the Mitla and Gidi Passes in the Sinai Desert as described in the Separation of Forces Agreement Between Israel and Egypt in 1974 that helped bring the Yom Kippur War to an end. Then-U.S. President Gerald Ford wrote a letter to Rabin, where he wrote, "The U.S. has not developed a final position on the borders. Should it do so, it will give great weight to Israel's position that any peace agreement with Syria must be predicated on Israel remaining on the Golan Heights." The letter was sent six years before Israel applied sovereignty to the Golan Heights. Forty-two years have since passed. Today, as we mark 50 years to the settlement of the Golan Heights, 42 years to Ford's letter and 36 years to Israel imposing its official sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the time has come for American recognition of Israeli sovereignty. The reasons are many: The Golan Heights are part of the land of Israel that was liberated in a defensive and just war. In all the years of its rule over the Golan Heights, Syria never accepted Israel's existence on any border and consistently showed aggression toward Israel's citizens. Syria controlled the Golan Heights for what amounts to 21 years. Israel has been in the Golan Heights for 40 years, 36 of which as a full sovereign, and has struck deep roots in the area. Five Israeli prime ministers have offered Syria the Golan Heights in return for a peace deal, and each time, Syria refused. The Golan Heights does not present a demographic threat to Israel's character as a Jewish and democratic state, with a solid Jewish majority, for generations to come. The civil war in Syria has led to the sobering of many minds that had argued for cessation. Any reasonable person understands that had Israel, God forbid, ceded the Golan Heights, the Islamic State would now be positioned right on the Sea of Galilee. We cannot assume that Syria will ever return to being one sovereign country in its previous borders, and a demand by any other country for sovereignty over the area is irrelevant. The Iran nuclear deal worsened Israel's strategic position. The Israeli monopoly on nuclear weapons -- according to foreign sources -- is one of the factors that, ever since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, has served to deter Arab states from starting an all-out war against Israel. The nuclearization of Iran could therefore spell the return of all-out wars. We must therefore insist that Israel has defensible borders, and thus must retain the current borders in the Golan Heights and in the Jordan Valley. Israel did not ask the United States and other countries for permission before annexing the Golan Heights because there was no chance they would have agreed. Today, 36 years after the Golan Heights Law was enacted, the time has come to promote international recognition of the law.
