President Donald Trump broke international consensus by officially recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, a gesture that justified Iran’s “aggression” and that took on a political tone, given the closeness of the Israelis elections.
More than a year after proclaiming that it considers Jerusalem the capital of Israel, Trump shook another traditional pillar of US policy in the Middle East by making the country the first in the world to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the strategic Golan Heights, occupied since 1967.
Along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and both dressed in the red tie that Trump reserves for his most political acts, the President signed a decree by which “The United States recognizes that Golan Heights is part of the State of Israel”.
“This should have been done many decades ago,” Trump said when signing the presidential proclamation.
“The aggressive acts of Iran and terrorist groups, including (Lebanese Shia militia) Hezbollah, in southern Syria, make the Golan Heights a potential platform to launch attacks on Israel,” Trump wrote in his decree.
The measure is in conflict with resolution 242 of the UN Security Council, which after the 1967 war urged Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories in that conflict, including Golan Heights, located on the border between Syria,
In addition, it could erode the credibility of Washington’s argument that Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula in 2014, given that Israel did the same in 1981 with the Golan region in the face of widespread rejection by the international community.
Syria crossed out Trump’s announcement of “violation of the sovereignty and unity of the Syrian territory,” and powers such as Russia, China, the United Kingdom or Turkey disagreed with that gesture since the US president passed it on Thursday in a tweet .
Many analysts interpreted Trump’s decision as an accolade to Netanyahu, who visited the White House two weeks before taking office in a disputed election, and returned to Israel with clear proof of his affinity with President Trump.
“Israel has never had a better friend than you,” Netanyahu told Trump. “This is a truly a historic day.”
The Israeli prime minister attends the elections touched by an accusation against him in three cases of corruption, and the fact that Trump received him so close to the elections contrasts with the decision of his predecessor, Barack Obama, not to meet him in 2015, when he also visited Washington during the electoral campaign.
Netanyahu defended that “the Jewish people have roots in the Golan for thousands of years,” and insisted that “there has never been such a great bond” as the one he shares with Trump.
The move promises to muddy the waters before the White House presents, probably after the Israeli elections, its peace plan for Israelis and Palestinians, drafted by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
“Any peace agreement must recognize Israel’s need to defend itself against Syria and others,” Trump said.
Kushner’s plan is expected to address the thorny issues in the conflict, including the establishment of borders, but his future is uncertain, because the Palestinians have refused to negotiate with Washington after their recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Netanyahu planned to give a speech on Tuesday to AIPAC, the main pro-Israeli pressure group in Washington, but canceled it to return to Israel on Monday due to the rocket fired in the last hours from Gaza, which destroyed a house and injured seven civilians, including three minors.
Israel responded with a blitz of bombing against targets of the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza, and Trump unequivocally backed Israel’s “absolute right to defend itself.”
The Israeli prime minister expressed his gratitude to Trump by giving him a box “of the best Golan wine”, but since the US president is abstemious, he eventually offered it to the White House staff.
“I hope they do not open an investigation about it,” quipped Netanyahu, referring to the recently closed inquiry of special prosecutor Robert Mueller on Trump and Russia.
