Should Israel reward Syria?

As a foreigner who lives in Israel (in the Scandinavian Seamen’s Church), I read with great sadness the article of Susan Hattis Rolef in which she claims that Israel according to international law has no right to the Golan Heights and that US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan is meaningless.

She probably does not know that the Golan Heights were part of the Mandate of Palestine when the League of Nations established it in 1922. This decision, which became international law, recognized the whole land (Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan and the western part that became the State of Israel in 1948) as land of the Jewish people. But later, when Great Britain got the administration of “Palestine” and France administered the mandate of Syria and Lebanon, the two Western powers made a change and transferred the Golan Heights to the French Mandate.

This means that the Golan, according to international law, does not belong to Syria. Israel is the rightful owner. When Syria became an independent state, it only misused these areas, attacked the poor Israelis in the valley below again and again, tried to cut off the water to Israel and began two wars against Israel. It lost both and in the Six Day War in 1967, Israel liberated the Golan Heights, which it should have had from the beginning.

Should the rightful owner of the Golan, Israel, now reward the perpetual aggressor, Syria, and give him a part of Israel’s precious land? BRUNO WENSKE

Haifa