In major shift, Trump says time for U.S. to recognise Israeli sovereignty over Golan

[webfact]

In major shift, Trump says time for U.S. to recognise Israeli sovereignty over Golan

By Steve Holland and Matt Spetalnick

 

FILE PHOTO: An Israeli soldier stands next to signs pointing out distances to different cities, on Mount Bental, an observation post in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that overlooks the Syrian side of the Quneitra crossing, Israel May 10, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday it was time to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights that Israel seized from Syria in 1967, marking a dramatic shift in U.S. policy and giving a boost to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the middle of his re-election campaign.

 

The disputed area was captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised internationally. Netanyahu has pressed the United States to recognise its claim and raised that possibility in his first White House meeting with Trump in February 2017.

 

"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognise Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

 

Trump's move appeared to be his most overt yet to help Netanyahu, who is locked in a closely contested race in the April 9 election while also fighting allegations of corruption, which he denies.

 

Netanyahu arrives in Washington next week to meet with Trump and address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, lobbying group.

Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria" that he did not intend his move as an explicit election boost for Netanyahu.

 

"I hear he’s doing okay. I don’t know if he’s doing great right now, but I hear he’s doing okay. But I would imagine the other side, whoever’s against him, is also in favour of what I just did," Trump said.

 

Trump, whose decision last year to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv angered Palestinians, faced some criticism for his latest move.

 

"Neither America nor Israel, neither Trump nor Netanyahu, will change the historical fact that the Golan lands are Syrian lands and they will remain Syrian lands," Ayman Abu Jabal, a member of the Druze community in the Israeli-occupied Golan, said by phone.

 

Netanyahu thanked Trump for the Golan Heights gesture.

 

"You've made history," Netanyahu told Trump in a phone call after the announcement, according to the prime minister's office.

 

Netanyahu had been expected to raise the issue again with Trump during his visit to Washington, an Israeli official said.

 

"At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognises Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Thank you President Trump! @realDonaldTrump," Netanyahu wrote in a tweet.

 

At the United Nations, a spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declined to comment.

 

The United States had foreshadowed the decision last week when the State Department issued its annual human rights report The report revised its usual description of the Golan Heights from “Israeli-occupied” to “Israeli-controlled.”

 

A senior administration official said the president had been discussing his Golan move over the last few days with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House national security adviser John Bolton, senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt and U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

 

Officials waved away any concerns about Israel's elections, the official said.

 

"Every single person was supportive of the idea," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

There was no clarity from the White House on when formal paperwork would be issued confirming Trump's tweeted decision.

 

Richard Haass, a former senior State Department official who is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on Twitter that he strongly disagreed with Trump's Golan decision.

 

Haass said the move violates U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, "which rules out acquiring territory by war and serves Israel as it says all states have right 2 live in peace."

 

The resolution, passed after the 1967 war, called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territories and guaranteed the right of countries in the region to live peacefully within secure and recognised borders.

 

J Street, a liberal Jewish-American lobbying group, criticized Trump's action, saying that premature U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty of Golan is a needlessly provocative move that violates international law.

 

"It’s clear that this cynical move by Trump is not about the long-term interests of the U.S. or Israel, but rather about handing yet another political gift to Prime Minister Netanyahu in the hopes of boosting his chances for re-election next month," said J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami.

 

Trump’s announcement could complicate his administration’s plans to roll out its long-delayed Middle East peace plan after Israel’s election.

 

The plan, which has drawn widespread scepticism even before its unveiling, is intended not only to bring Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table but also draw Israel closer to its U.S.-allied Arab neighbours. Those states, however, have long rejected Israel’s annexation of the Golan.

 

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Steve Holland and Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-03-22

[Tug]

Oh boy here we go again

[ezzra]

It would be helpful to read this article in the right context, remembering China annexing Taiwan and Tibet, Turkey of north Cyprus, Russia of Crimea and Georgia and many more, and when an explanations will be given for the above only then The US and israel can be scrutinised...

[Lungstib]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

"You've made history," Netanyahu told Trump

But for all the wrong reasons. Once more going against the majority who dont see this as a way to bring peace between Israel and its neighbours.

[Topdoc]

Welcome to the Golan Heights. Israeli and American oilmen believe they have discovered a bonanza in this most inconvenient of sites. After three test-drillings, Yuval Bartov, the chief geologist of Genie Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of American-based Genie Energy, says his company thinks it has found an oil reservoir “with the potential of billions of barrels”.

 

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2015/11/07/black-gold-under-the-golan 

[brokenbone]

1 hour ago, ezzra said:

It would be helpful to read this article in the right context, remembering China annexing Taiwan and Tibet, Turkey of north Cyprus, Russia of Crimea and Georgia and many more, and when an explanations will be given for the above only then The US and israel can be scrutinised...

the context is US warmongering, as of late on muslim nations, and israels ethnic cleansing and annexation of neighboring countries

[Emdog]

"Trump: creating problems where there were none before" might be a good 2020 campaign slogan

[ezzra]

52 minutes ago, Topdoc said:

Welcome to the Golan Heights. Israeli and American oilmen believe they have discovered a bonanza in this most inconvenient of sites. After three test-drillings, Yuval Bartov, the chief geologist of Genie Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of American-based Genie Energy, says his company thinks it has found an oil reservoir “with the potential of billions of barrels”.

 

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2015/11/07/black-gold-under-the-golan 

Yes, sure... all the  middle east's tensions and wars for the last 70+ years is about a possibility of oil deposits in the Golan heights, yeah, let's go with that as according to you that's explains everything...

[isaanjohnno]

And once again Trump proves his Zionist/Globalist leanings

[ezzra]

49 minutes ago, brokenbone said:

the context is US warmongering, as of late on muslim nations, and israels ethnic cleansing and annexation of neighboring countries

Your arguments would have been taken more seriously if you hadn't singled out the US as a 'warmongering' nations and Israel as 'ethnic cleansing' but with such myopic one sided views, disregarding others nations plights, your words means nothing...

[Chomper Higgot]

1 hour ago, ezzra said:

It would be helpful to read this article in the right context, remembering China annexing Taiwan and Tibet, Turkey of north Cyprus, Russia of Crimea and Georgia and many more, and when an explanations will be given for the above only then The US and israel can be scrutinised...

Whataboutary.

 

All you need do is find someone doing something worse to claim your own actions above question.

 

Let’s stick that line of argument in the hogwash bucket.

[Chomper Higgot]

3 minutes ago, ezzra said:

Your arguments would have been taken more seriously if you hadn't singled out the US as a 'warmongering' nations and Israel as 'ethnic cleansing' but with such myopic one sided views, disregarding others nations plights, your words means nothing...

‘Myopic’ you said!

[ezzra]

10 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Myopic

my·op·ic

/ˌmīˈäpik/

adjective

nearsighted.

synonyms:short-sighted; More

lacking imagination, foresight, or intellectual insight.

"the government still has a myopic attitude to public spending"

synonyms:unimaginative, uncreative, unadventurous, narrow-minded, lacking foresight, small-minded, short-term, narrow; 

[melvinmelvin]

Trump sure knows how to make the US irrelevant in ME piece efforts.

 

[300sd]

Good.

[Nyezhov]

1 hour ago, isaanjohnno said:

And once again Trump proves his Zionist/Globalist leanings

Once again, Trump does the right thing.

[PremiumLane]

1 hour ago, ezzra said:

Yes, sure... all the  middle east's tensions and wars for the last 70+ years is about a possibility of oil deposits in the Golan heights, yeah, let's go with that as according to you that's explains everything...

well it explains every Western intervention in the Middle East, starting with the Brits in the early 19th Century.  Try reading some history and not just listening to Fox

[ezzra]

Sweet <DELETED> that's what most posters here know what is really going on in the middle east, all ears are perked up once the hear Israel this or israel that, to say that many of the people commenting on these topics are NOT israel's nor Jews sympathisers will be an understatement, judging from the 'confused' feedbacks to my posts sums it all up, confused and clueless, most here getting their middle east knowledge from sensesational TV and newspaper headlines and for them that's enough, 

for example, successions of Israeli prime ministers were ready to give back some of the annexed Golan heights, even netanyahu, most of all did PM Olmert who offered Assad the whole of the territory back for peace treaty with Syria, that offer was rejected and the rest is history...

[CGW]

1 hour ago, isaanjohnno said:

And once again Trump proves his Zionist/Globalist leanings

Yep, the "Russian" link was a good distraction for a while, that seems to have died 

The US in giving Israel billions a year has long recognised Israel as its ?????

[Bluespunk]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

I hear he’s doing okay. I don’t know if he’s doing great right now, but I hear he’s doing okay. But I would imagine the other side, whoever’s against him, is also in favour of what I just did," Trump said.

Ah, such succinct political analysis and grasp of the subtleties of the political landscape in the wider world.

 

Man’s a genius. 

[Opl]

" During an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pompeo called it “possible” that Trump was sent by God to save the Jewish people."

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/03/21/pompeo-thinks-god-sent-trump-jewish-people.html

[KKr]

8 minutes ago, Opl said:

" During an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pompeo called it “possible” that Trump was sent by God to save the Jewish people."

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/03/21/pompeo-thinks-god-sent-trump-jewish-people.html

you are 10 days early .
what a bunch of .. jokers.

until sanity returns I shall not capitalize the name of that country.

[Nyezhov]

22 minutes ago, Opl said:

" During an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pompeo called it “possible” that Trump was sent by God to save the Jewish people."

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/03/21/pompeo-thinks-god-sent-trump-jewish-people.html

Well hell, in light of the Jew hating on the part of the Islamic fanatacists and their left wing allies plus that from the miniscule number of Nazis still popping out of dark slimy corners like cocoroaches maybe he is right.

[dexterm]

OP..."J Street, a liberal Jewish-American lobbying group, criticized Trump's action, saying that premature U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty of Golan is a needlessly provocative move that violates international law."

 

Just because Trump says Syrian lands are now Israeli doesn't make it so, because no other country will agree with him. And Syria certainly won't, so it simply continues the prospect of war between them, when Syria re-arms. Has nothing to do with Trump's bringing stability to the region..just the opposite in fact...needlessly creates another obstacle to peace.

 

International law says territory cannot be acquired by war. (UN resolution 242 and the Geneva Convention; backed up by the Reagan administration's declaration that Israel's 1981 annexation was null and void).Trump has just trampled on that principle, and so we revert to the era of Ghengis Khan where might is right.

 

How can USA credibly criticize any other country in the world for the illegal seizure of land and violation of the human rights of the people who live there, when Trump has just hypocritically approved exactly that in the Golan.

 

It doesn't promote peace or the safety of Israel or USA either. Their enemies can now justify their attacks against a colonialist expansionist Israel supported by USA.

[BobBKK]

Idiot. So Britain can claim Germany?  USA Iraq? 

[malibukid]

3 hours ago, Emdog said:

"Trump: creating problems where there were none before" might be a good 2020 campaign slogan

his son in law is Jarred Kushner, what did you expect.

[Burma Bill]

Of course he will - has to please his Jewish son-in-law!

[Nyezhov]

1 hour ago, Sydebolle said:

What this clip from an US TV station to the end

Well lookie, lookie, they are really coming out of the woodwork now.

[Guest Jerry787]

very soon 'zionist' Israelis will own all middle east

trump has been the worst disgrace over 10 decades in US

[PremiumLane]

9 hours ago, ezzra said:

Sweet <DELETED> that's what most posters here know what is really going on in the middle east, all ears are perked up once the hear Israel this or israel that, to say that many of the people commenting on these topics are NOT israel's nor Jews sympathisers will be an understatement, judging from the 'confused' feedbacks to my posts sums it all up, confused and clueless, most here getting their middle east knowledge from sensesational TV and newspaper headlines and for them that's enough, 

for example, successions of Israeli prime ministers were ready to give back some of the annexed Golan heights, even netanyahu, most of all did PM Olmert who offered Assad the whole of the territory back for peace treaty with Syria, that offer was rejected and the rest is history...

I love how you post sensational nonsense and then accuse others of the same.

 

Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 and has claimed it ever since. The Syrians wanted it back as part of a peace treaty, all Israel did was offer a part of Golan back, knowing this would be rejected, and as you say, the rest is history