In 1967, Israel seized the Golan—an area inhabited by Jews since biblical times—in a battle initiated by Syria, and in 1981 formally applied its laws there. Yet, as late as 2011, the U.S. was encouraging Jerusalem to negotiate the return of the territory to Damascus in exchange for promises of peace. To Rafael Bardaji and Richard Kemp, it is high time for both Washington and its allies to admit that the Jewish state’s continued control of the Golan is most conducive to regional stability:

As part of the Arab League, Syrian forces launched an invasion of northern Israel across the Golan Heights in June 1948. After the 1949 armistice, there were years of sporadic attacks against Israel from the Golan, including cross-border raids by Fatah and shelling of civilian communities by the Syrian army. Syria intensified its artillery fire against Israel at the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967. . . .

Recognition by the international community [of Israel’s control of the Golan] would not encourage wars of aggression but, on the contrary, would deter them. Returning the Golan Heights to Syria would not only endanger Israel and against their will consign the 25,000 Druze living there to the depredations of President Assad; but it would also send the message that an aggressor has nothing to lose as there is no territorial price to pay for its violent actions.

Western support for Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights would equally extract a price from Assad—albeit a comparatively small one—for the war he has waged against his own people in which millions have suffered and perhaps half a million died. In this, the West has plenty of words but few tools at its disposal. Rejecting Assad’s claim on the Golan Heights is one of them, especially as he now seems set to retain virtually all of the status quo ante even after the monstrous war crimes he has committed.

But such a move by the West would be much more than just a rap on the knuckles; it would also be an expression of the new reality. In the past Israel offered Syria the Golan Heights in exchange for peace, but its offers were always rejected. Many Western experts and governments naïvely viewed Assad as a potential partner for peace with Israel. The events of the last seven years have proved beyond all doubt that he is nothing other than a murderous despot who must not be given any opportunity for further aggression. This is really the crux of the issue: Western action now could make a concrete contribution to preventing conflict in the future.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.