First Statement:
Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Madam DiCarlo and Mr. Lacroix for your briefings.
Two days ago, the United States recognized what has been true for the past 52 years: the Golan Heights is and will always be Israel’s sovereign territory.
We thank the United States for its just and historic proclamation. This step, like many others it has taken before, shows the willingness of the United States to honor reality on the ground. It reflects, once again, the sincere commitment of the United States to ensuring Israel’s security and right to self-defense.
We implore member states to join the United States in recognizing that the Golan Heights is Israel’s sovereign land.
Madam President,
From the moment Israel was founded, the Syrian regime has maintained a policy of aggression with the goal of wiping Israel off the map. The Syrian army joined four other Arab armies in attacking our newly-born Jewish state in 1948.
For the next two decades, the Syrian army rained deadly fire from the Golan Heights into Israeli civilian areas and filled the territory with bunkers, barbed-wire fences and minefields.
In 1967, Israel – as nations around the world recognized – was forced to engage in a war of self-defense.
Self-defense.
Israel must ensure that this territory will never again be used to target our people.
Since 1967, the Golan Heights has proven critical to our very survival. Just six years later, in a most vile act of war, Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day for the Jewish people.
In this decisive moment in Israeli history, it was the Golan Heights that proved invaluable to Israel’s fate.
With the high ground in our control, Israel was able to absorb Syria’s initial act of war and successfully launch a counterattack.
The State of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights is vital: both for preventing future Syrian acts of aggression against Israel and for ensuring the safety, security and stability of our region.
Mr. President,
Addressing you today is the representative of a regime responsible for one of the most horrific humanitarian crises of the present day. A representative complicit in the murder of hundreds of thousands of his own people.
The Syrian ambassador comes here to talk about the Golan Heights. Shame on you!
Where were you when your government was gassing children?
Shame on you for dropping barrel bombs on your people!
Shame on you for inviting the Iranians into your country!
I ask you today: to whom exactly does the UN want to give the Golan? To the thousands of fighters directed by Iran? To the Shia foreign militias? To the jihadist factions? To whom?
Their fighting has repeatedly spilled into Israel’s sovereign territory and sniper fire and mortars have frequently fallen into Israel.
As Israel opened its doors to treat injured Syrians in the Golan Heights, President Assad made clear that Hezbollah, operating in Syria, should use the Golan Heights to attack Israel.
At Iran’s command, Hezbollah has seized the opportunity to establish a Syrian terror front from which to attack Israel. Hezbollah’s Syrian terror network ranges from the town of Hader, at the northern end of the Golan Heights, to the towns of Arneh, Khan Arnabeh and Quneitra. The terror network is focused currently on intelligence-gathering.
We have that information. We are watching you.
But these efforts are just the backdrop of a larger and more dangerous Hezbollah terror operation to attack Israel. Hezbollah’s Syrian terror network is exploiting the civilian population living near the Israeli border and using Syrian observation points in the area as outposts for this terror operation.
The Syrian government has given the Iranian regime freedom of movement and operation in its own sovereign land. It has recklessly given up its territory for the Iranian regime to establish military entrenchment and expand its control from Tehran all the way to the Mediterranean.
In February 2018, an Iranian UAV, armed with explosives, was launched into Israel from Syria with the intention of attacking Israelis.
In January of this year, the Iranian regime committed a grave act of aggression against Israel by firing a medium range, surface-to-surface missile into northern Israel from Syria.
The situation today, here in this room, is that the Syrian regime is not even representing its own people anymore. It is serving its puppet master in Tehran!
Madam President,
No nation in the world would give up strategic land to its most dangerous enemy. Without the Golan Heights, Israel will find Quds soldiers on the tip of the Sea of Galilee.
We will never let that happen.
For years, the Assad regime has slaughtered its people. It has allowed Iran to entrench itself inside Syria.
Does the international community honestly think Israel would give the Golan Heights to a war criminal?
The war crimes of the dictator from Damascus will someday be stopped.
Madam President,
Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights is forever. The Jewish people’s roots in the Golan Heights go back thousands of years. The Golan is mentioned in the Tanakh – the Bible – multiple times. And it is home today to tens of thousands of Israelis.
As Prime Minister Menachem Begin said in 1981, “One cannot find in the Land of Israel or outside of it, any serious man who has studied the history of the Land of Israel, which tries to deny the fact that throughout many generations, the Golan Heights were an inseparable part of the Land of Israel.”
International recognition of the Israeli Golan Heights ensures the security and stability of our region.
For those states that pay lip service to Israel’s inherent right to self-defense, now is your opportunity to prove the weight of your words.
I thank you.