Trump recognizes Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights
The intent had already been announced, but now it’s official:
President Trump on Monday signed a proclamation officially granting U.S. recognition of Israel’s claim over the Golan Heights, reversing decades of American policy regarding the disputed territory between Israel and Syria.
Standing side-by-side with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said he was taking the “historic action” because Iran and terrorist groups “continue to make the Golan Heights a potential launching ground for attacks against Israel.”
“This was a long time in the making. Should have taken place decades ago,” Trump told reporters as he signed the proclamation in the Diplomatic Reception Room.
Trump cited a Monday rocket strike Israel said was launched by Palestinian militant group Hamas that injured seven near Tel Aviv as the type of incident he wants to prevent, saying “we do not want to see another attack like the one suffered this morning.”
The announcement offers a major boost to Netanyahu, who is facing reelection in two weeks in a race in which he has been shadowed by a slew of corruption indictments.
Netanyahu had his eight years in the Obama wilderness, and he must be awfully happy that Trump is now in office, even though it may not mean that Netanyahu survives the peril he faces politically and legally at home. But even that aspect must bond him with Trump, who has survived quite a bit himself so far.
Among other things, this act of Trump’s serves to highlight the differences between his attitude towards Israel and the current attitude of the Democrat Party towards Israel and towards Jews in general.
The Arab nations with whom we are allied almost certainly don’t care about this move of Trump’s or perhaps they even applaud it:
Yet, in Beirut — which classifies Israel as an “enemy state” and was invaded by its southern neighbour in 1982 — the reaction has been largely muted. On Friday, the top US diplomat met with Lebanon’s highest officials to discuss security in the region, including the role of Hezbollah, which the US considers a terrorist organization.
Some critical editorials were published in Arab newspapers on Friday morning. One Lebanese newspaper dubbed Pompeo the “ugly guest.” But besides these blips of opposition, Beirut and other Arab capitals appear unfazed by an announcement that seemingly marks a seismic shift in regional politics.
The shift actually happened a while back, when Trump took office. Maybe even before, although you wouldn’t know it from Obama’s outward behavior, and at that time it probably had more to do with internal Arab affairs. I think part of it is that a lot of Arabs in the region really are not especially keen on the Palestinians, and have got their own big problems:
In Syria, the Trump announcement dims the country’s prospects of restoring Israeli-occupied parts of the Golan Heights, after years of failed negotiations over the territory. Yet outward signs of outrage in the war-torn country are few and far between.
Most Syrians, said Syrian columnist Haid Haid, are “focusing on surviving.” In the northwest, Syrians struggle to take cover from incessant regime shelling.
And what of the strategically important Golan Heights themselves? I’ll leave it to Ted Cruz to explain:
"The Golan Heights were taken in 1967 during a defensive war where #Israel was attacked…No one in their right mind would want to see the Golan Heights go to Bashar al-Assad, go to Syria, or go to Iranian proxies, or the Russians. It's legitimately part of Israel." pic.twitter.com/UW3Fv2eg0J
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) March 24, 2019
The Golan Heights situation should be a reminder that those who start a war and then lose it have little room for complaint. The Sudeten Germans and East Prussians learned that in 1945. One would think the Palestinians would too, if they are at all intelligent. I fear they have had intelligence bred out of them after 71 years of UN welfare,
Ottoman Turkey lost the Fertile Crescent on the battlefield during the 1st World War. Over the period running from 1918 to 1921, the British and French occupiers assembled the extant Ottoman subprefectures into five territories, and then made some adjustments to exterior boundaries. Lebanon and Syria were incorporated as dependencies of France; Iraq, the Transjordan, and Palestine as dependencies of Britain. Within them, there were all manner of communal distinctions and rivalries: of lineage, locality, way of life, confession, and dialect. In the Transjordan, Lebanon, and Syria, all but a low-single-digit minority was Arabophone. In Iraq, about 3/4 of the population was Arabophone, the other quarter a jumble of Kurds, Jews, Turcoman, Assyrians &c. Palestine had a great many migrants, among them a burgeoning Jewish population atop antique Jewish communities in Jerusalem.
The area called the Golan Heights was incorporated into ‘Syria’ from 1920 to 1967. It was part of the territory designated the Al Qunaytrah Governorate after Syria repartitioned it’s provinces in 1961. That particular province had at that time about 106,000 residents (or about 2.3% of Syria’s population). The majority of the residents were Druze. There was a bloc exodus from the area after 1967 and the gentile population on the Israeli side of the armistice lines is now about 20,000 (mostly Druze). Syria’s never been willing to negotiate anything more elaborate than a truce with Israel and Israel’s been inclined to hold on to the territory because the Syrians at one time made use of the topography to hit Israeli villages with artillery barrages. If I’m not mistaken, the local population have a franchise to apply for Israeli citizenship (as do Jerusalem Arabs), but a broader array of options as regards their domicile and employment than have Jerusalem Arabs (who have to stay in greater Jerusalem or risk loss of legal status).
I applaud the move, it being won fairly in combat and essential to Israel’s national security.
That said, Islam will never accept Israel’s existence. As Allah has declared in the Qur’an that once land is part of the Ummah it must forever after remain so. What are mankind’s puny declarations compared to Allah’s eternal edicts? Israel’s extermination is a theological imperative.
I hope that Netanyahu weathers this storm, if not I think it entirely possible that a leftist regime will take over and give away more of the store. It is not just Muslims who reject Israel’s right to exist. The world is filled with leftists and liberal “useful idiots” who reject Israel’s right to exist and Israel has its full share of leftists.
I’ve christened this the “Bullshit Age,” but maybe the “Irony Age” is more appropriate. Or maybe they’re the same thing. Today’s Irony Winner: Turkey is going to file a complaint with the UN about the U.S’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over Golan. “Territory won by war can never be incorporated into the winning state.” They actually said that. I hope they do bring it to the UN. Israel will then bring a complaint against Turkey for its 1974 invasion and occupation of Cyprus. Probably be the first time the UN has ever heard that.
Richard Saunders, that would be amusing!
What? The Arab “street” ( state sponsored mandatory demonstrations ) hasn’t seemed to erupt in any countries?
The major protests, if any, will be here in the US performed by the usual suspects.
This is another reason I will HAPPILY vote for Donald Trump in 2020.
My conjecture as to why so many Democrat pols are now blatantly announcing that they are anti-Semites is that, formerly, they didn’t have to: it was simply understood that if you were in the Elite Circles, you were against Israel, for the sole reason that it is full of Jews who take their heritage and even their (gasp!) religion seriously.
And literally too, come to think of it.
Elsewhere in the link about “Arab nations don’t care” –
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/22/middleeast/trumps-golan-heights-arab-reaction-intl/index.html
“Since becoming president, Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, cut funding off to Palestinian refugees, and ordered the closure of the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington DC.”
All of that should have been done decades ago.
And this excerpt addresses the claim made by Turkey that Richard mentioned.
The last line, of course, is laughable.
To wit:
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2019/03/25/enjoy-this-video-of-hamas-leaders-office-wiped-out-by-idf-airstrikes/
“Israel Defense Forces didn’t make any secret of their target after Israel was barraged by rockets from Gaza.”
Turkey exists because the Turks invaded Anatolia and conquered it. They think you flat faced Westerners are too dumb to know history. And they would be mostly right at this point.
They think you flat faced Westerners are too dumb to know history.
Yes, the Arabs learned the hard way not to accept Turks bearing gifts.
Of course the Golan Heights belong to Israel by right of conquest.
The adoption of the UN charter didn’t change this simple principle. Yes, it’s illegal to seize territory through a war of aggression. But the opposite isn’t true. If the defender successfully retains it’s territory and seizes some of the aggressor’s, the defender doesn’t have to give it back. Otherwise there’d be no penalty for launching a war of aggression; the attacker will be just as well off afterward if they sue for peace before losing everything. They’d get all their territory back.
No, it doesn’t work that way if they decide to roll the dice and risk an attack, and the defender turns the tables on the aggressor the defender can keep all the territory it seizes. If the aggressor gambles and loses they lose their chips, so to speak.
Look at a map of Europe. Do you see the German Baltic enclave of Konigsberg on the map? It’s not there. It became the Soviet (now Russian) Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad in the post WWII era. And that was after the UN charter had been drafted and had been adopted by the allied nations who became the first member states.
Not that I”m a fan of the UN or the UN charter by any means. But the globalists argue that the UN charter abolished the right of conquest. It did not, as long as you seize territory in a war of self-defense.
Elbaradei is an idiot.
This may have some relevancy later on with Russia’s claim of the Crimean peninsula (and there they did have a referendum on leaving the Ukraine to join Russia).
However, I would feel so much happier if more attention was paid to America’s national sovereignty, and the security of our borders. After all, we did win the war in 1848.
Then, Yankee on, you have to pay attention to it all.
Sincerely, bold Texan.
Yes, it’s illegal to seize territory through a war of aggression. But the opposite isn’t true. If the defender successfully retains it’s territory and seizes some of the aggressor’s, the defender doesn’t have to give it back.
Key observation. Even Germany knows that.