Israel-Lebanon border
Israel-Lebanon borderHadas Parush/Flash90

I must confess that I am disappointed by Israel.

I had really hoped that the process of recognizing Israeli sovereignty over communities built beyond the phantom Green Line of 1967, really just an arbitrary Armistice Line drawn in 1949, would begin. I met too many families, too many heroes, too many fathers, too many mothers, too many communities that paid a very high price in terms of security , international boycott and internal ostracism in Judea and Samaria not to hope that the famous "annexation" was real.

Annexation? It is only the application of Israeli civilian instead of miitary law. And how can you be said to annex what is yours in history, religion, morality and from a military point of view?

Perhaps Israel has not yet acted because it fears that Donald Trump may not be re-elected in November and a possible Democratic party administration would not legitimize this annexation of just 6 months.

Perhaps Israel did not do it because bits and pieces of the moderate left in the government do not like it (they never shone with courage in claiming what belongs to Israel).

Maybe Israel will do it.

It should do it for a very simple reason: Israel has no internationally recognized borders and, in fact, they are formed by its enemies.

The area bordering Lebanon is in the sights of Hezbollah; the Golan is recognized practically only by the United States; the Jordan valley is in demand by everyone from the Jordanians to the Palestinians; the border of Gaza is a latticework assaulted in a continuous cycle; Jerusalem is a holy and porous city.

Israel, if it has no borders, has many settlements.

So it is Israel wherever there is an Israeli community. This has always been the tragic but inevitable reality from the 1920s to today. Metulla on the border with Lebanon, the moshavs in the Golan and in the Gaza envelope, the large new neighborhoods of Jerusalem and within Judea and Samaria, the dozens of cities, villages and even just small outposts.

The famous linear, straight and clear borders of the Arab states are wiped out when Islamic fundamentalism passes over them. Ask what ISIS terrorists think of the Sykes-Picot borders.

It would be wonderful if Israel could have one of those maps that post-World War II Europeans like so much - or have linear, straight and clear borders like the Arab states artificially born with decolonization. However, Israel's enemies don't think so. They attack and consider it Israel wherever even a Jew lives. Furthermore, the famous linear, straight and clear borders of the Arab states are also wiped out when Islamic fundamentalism passes over them. Ask what ISIS terrorists think of the Sykes-Picot borders.

For Islam, what is Israel should all go back to Ummah, from Jaffa to Beersheba. These days, Turkish President Erdogan is planning to take back the large cathedral of Hagia Sophia, which was a church for 1,500 years, a mosque for another 500 and a museum for 100 years.

The clarity of the Islamic world on this subject is elementary. It should also be that of Israel regarding what belongs to it.

Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the English books "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books.. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Gatestone, Frontpage and Commentary.