WASHINGTON – With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, USPresident Donald Trump declared Monday that the Golan Heights belongs toIsrael — handing another major diplomatic victory to the premier ahead oftight elections.
Netanyahu spared no praise as he watched Trump sign the Golan proclamationat the White House, likening him to President Harry S Truman, whorecognized Israel, and even to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who freedthe Jews of Babylon.
“Your decision to recognize Israel s sovereignty on the Golan Heights is sohistoric,” Netanyahu told Trump. The Jewish state captured the territoryfrom Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967.
“Your recognition is a twofold act of historic justice. Israel won theGolan Heights in a just war of self-defense, and the Jewish people s rootsin the Golan go back thousands of years,” he said.
Trump — who in 2017 took the even more momentous step of recognizingdisputed Jerusalem as Israel s capital — called the Golan declaration “along time in the making.”
“It should have taken place many decades ago,” said Trump, who had revealedhis intentions on the Golan on Thursday in a Twitter message.
Netanyahu, a wily right-winger who this year would become thelongest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, is facing anunexpectedly stiff challenge in April 9 elections from centrist BennyGantz, who also came to Washington for AIPAC.
Netanyahu was visiting Washington for the conference of the American IsraelPublic Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel US lobby, but cut hisvisit short after a rocket fired Monday from the Hamas-controlled GazaStrip hit a house north of Tel Aviv, wounding seven Israelis in anunusually long-range attack.
Just as Netanyahu entered the White House, Israeli warplanes struck targetsin Gaza linked to Hamas — which denied carrying out the attack — with theprime minister vowing to respond “forcefully to this wanton aggression.”
Trump was isolated in the move, with the United Nations and US alliesFrance and Britain all saying that they still considered the Golan Heights”Israeli-occupied” in line with UN resolutions.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Trump sdeclaration “ignores all international procedures” and “could drive a newwave of tensions” in the Middle East.
Syria denounced the “blatant attack” on its sovereignty, while TurkishForeign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu criticized Trump for giving “virtually anelection gift” to Netanyahu.
Israel annexed the Golan in 1981 but had won no international support. Theterritory had long been seen as a comparatively easy problem to resolve, asboth Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Golan s 20,000 settlers arelargely secular in a region dominated by religious feuds.
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But changing the strategic dynamics, Syria has been embroiled for years ina devastating civil war in which Iran has made inroads — to the staunchopposition of Israel, which has vowed to eradicate the clerical regime spresence.
Shortly before the Golan proclamation, Vice President Mike Pence broughtthe AIPAC audience to its feet as he hailed Trump as “the greatest friendof the Jewish people and the state of Israel ever to sit in the OvalOffice.”
Amid Trump and Netanyahu s mutual affection and the Israeli leader srightward turn, top Democrats seeking the White House have steered clear ofAIPAC — an absence that Pence eagerly highlighted.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a liberal Democrat whose city is home to 1.2million Jews, nonetheless spoke at AIPAC, where he acknowledged differenceswith Netanyahu but won a standing ovation for opposing the movement toboycott Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians.
Challenger Gantz showed virtually no daylight with Netanyahu on securityissues in his AIPAC address.
Citing his mother s experience as a Holocaust survivor and his son sservice in the military, the former military chief said that “strength andmoral power come together.”
“That is why I say from this stage to the Iranian regime — never again. Wewill not allow you to establish yourself in Syria, we will not allow you todevelop nuclear weapons,” he said.
“On my watch, you will not become a regional power and I will not hesitateto use force if and when needed,” he said.
Gantz said that Jerusalem would always be Israel s “united and eternalcapital” and added, without ruling out a Palestinian state in the WestBank, that the Jordan Valley would “always” be Israel s eastern securityborder.
But he won loud cheers from the American Jewish audience when he turned todomestic issues, promising more inclusiveness at the Western Wall inJerusalem, where women are separated from men, and chiding Netanyahu forallying with a party widely condemned as racist. – APP/AFP
