A century ago, Mark Sykes of Britain and Francois Georges-Picot of France agreed in secret on how the colonial powers would carve up the Middle East after winning World War One. That map is now as dead as those two diplomats, a fact that contemporary statesmen should accept, beginning with international recognition of Israel’s sovereignty on the Golan Heights. Visit the Golan, as I did with my family today, and the rightness of Israeli rule could not be more evident.

Where to begin? With the cliff top community of Gamla, whose Jewish defenders held off Roman legionnaires 2,000 years ago until, overrun, they leapt to their deaths rather than fall captive? With Israel’s rebirth as a state in 1948, after which Syrian forces used the strategic plateau to mercilessly snipe at and shell its kibbutzim around the Sea of Galilee?  FULL REPORT