Israeli transportation minister Yisrael Katz has called on his government to work on obtaining US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights and giving the Palestinians some sort of self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Katz made the remarks at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center marking 35 years since the Knesset passed a bill to impose Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
He added that the Israeli government should also increase the number of Jewish settlers in the Golan Heights to 100000 residents in the following years and work to achieve that.
He also called for Israel to expand the borders of Jerusalem and extend its sovereignty over the settlements surrounding it such as Maale Adumim Betar Illit and Gush Etzion “just as Menachem Begin did regarding the Golan Heights 35 years ago.”
In addition Katz pledged to construct a new railway station to serve residents of the Golan Heights.
Katz praised what he called Begin’s maintenance of Israeli sovereignty over a united Jerusalem and called for not stopping to expand and build settlements in the West Bank.
He proposed engaging in negotiations with neighboring Arab countries to grant some autonomy to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza in order to police themselves.
However he expressed his rejection of the idea of creating a new Arab state in the West Bank and Jerusalem calling it “a violation of the Jews’ historic rights to the land” and “a serious threat to Israel’s security in the future.”
The Israeli army occupied two-thirds of the Syrian Golan Heights region in the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967 before the government of Begin extracted approval from the Knesset in 1981 for its decision to annex the Golan area to Israel.
