The intention of US President Donald Trump to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel does not contribute to the goals and objectives of the Middle East settlement. This was stated by the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov.
“Such appeals can significantly destabilize the already tense situation in the Middle East,” said Peskov.
Earlier today, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned Trump’s statement about the Golan Heights. She stressed that Russia regards this territory as part of Syria in accordance with the position of the United Nations.
“Changing the status of the Golan Heights bypassing the Security Council is in direct violation of the UN decisions,” Zakharova stressed.
As noted in the commentary of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the statement by the US President is "another manifestation of Washington’s disregard for international law, resolutions of the UN Security Council, and the principle of land for peace."
Recall, March 21, in his Twitter, US President Donald Trump said that the United States should recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan.
The Golan Heights is a disputed territory between Israel and Syria. In 1967, as a result of the Six Day War, this part of southern Syria was occupied by Israel, and in 1981 the country unilaterally declared its sovereignty over the Golan. However, this step was not recognized in the UN, and in its documents the Golan Heights are Syrian. The United States, despite its close ties with Israel, has also never before officially recognized Tel Aviv’s sovereignty over these territories.
Because of the occupation of the Golan Heights, Israel and Syria are not de facto divided by the state border, but by the line of demarcation of the forces of the times of the 1967 war, on which the UN peacekeepers should be. During the civil war in Syria, they were forced to leave the heights, but since last August, with the assistance of the Russian military police, peacekeeping patrols returned to the Golan.
For Israel, control of the Golan Heights is of strategic importance - Damascus is just a few dozen kilometers from the disputed territories.
World community reaction
In 1981, Israel’s decision to include the Golan Heights in its membership led to tensions in American-Israeli relations. The just-concluded agreement to counter the "Soviet threat" and US military assistance to Israel was at risk.
- Syrian Druze in the Golan Heights
- AFP
- © JALAA MAREY
Now, as experts note, the United States risks deteriorating relations with Arab countries and Turkey. In the Arab League, Trump’s decision was already called “completely outside international law.” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Cavusoglu said that US attempts to justify Israeli actions would lead to another round of violence in the Middle East.
“As a rule, in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Arab world has been on the side of the Arabs since the 1940s because of its solidarity with the Muslim community. And the Arabs will criticize Trump’s decision to varying degrees, ”notes Zinin.
According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, US statements about the need to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights put the Middle East region on the brink of a new political crisis.
The danger of a “new round of collisions” was also announced at the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who is in Turkey at the Conference of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, said that representatives of Muslim countries were “shocked” by Donald Trump’s statement.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry called Trump's statement irresponsible and stressed that Syria is committed to the principle of the liberation of all its territories.
The official representative of the head of EU diplomacy, Maia Kosyancic, stressed that the countries of the Union continue to consider this territory occupied by Israel.
Representative of the German Cabinet of Ministers Ulrike Demmer also spoke out against unilateral decisions on the ownership of the Golan Heights during the briefing.
“The government’s position on the Golan Heights has not changed and is in line with the resolutions of the UN Security Council, especially Resolution No. 497 of 1981,” the representative of the German government quoted TASS.
The official representative of the French Foreign Ministry said that the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights would be contrary to the norms of international law.
"The recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the occupied territory, would contradict international law, in particular, the obligation of states not to recognize the illegal situation," TASS quoted him as saying.
The Secretary General of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Persian Gulf (GCC), Abdel Latyf al-Zayani, also responded to Trump’s words.
In a statement published on the website of a regional organization, al-Zayani noted that the intention of the US President to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights “will not change the firm position held by the international community and the United Nations that the Golan Heights are Syrian territory occupied by Israel 5 June 1967. "
"Statements by the US president undermine the chances of achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, which will be achieved only with the withdrawal of Israel from all Arab territories occupied in 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council" given in the statement of the GCC General Secretary.
Resolution on the Golan Heights
According to the American edition of The Atlantic, citing neoconservative Michael Dubovits, the question of recognizing the Golan Heights as part of Israel has been considered by the Trump administration since 2017.
In December 2018, Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton submitted a resolution to the upper house of Congress.
Two months later, these senators, in collaboration with their colleague Lindsay Graham, Congressman Mike Gallagher and a number of other lawmakers, proposed a bill that recognized the recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli as a priority foreign policy direction for the United States.
As noted by Reuters, the United States made a new step towards reassessing the status of the Golan Heights last week. In the annual report of the State Department on the state of human rights in the world, the Golan Heights, in contrast to past documents, were called not “occupied by Israel”, but “under Israeli control”.
In November 2018, the United States for the first time voted in the UN General Assembly against a resolution condemning the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights.
Domestic policy issue
The American president was the first to thank Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to The New York Times, it was Netanyahu during a meeting on March 20 with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urging the American side to declare recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan.
True, according to Israeli media, Trump could have chosen a much more convenient time and place to make a statement on this issue. For example, on March 25, when Netanyahu arrives in Washington. However, according to the media, if Trump’s message was sent to the intra-Israeli audience, the decision of the American leader to make such a statement can be understood.
In Israel, the election campaign is in full swing. The new Knesset will be selected on April 9, and, according to opinion polls, Netanyahu's Likud Party and the opposition White-and-Blue Coalition led by Benny Gantz are almost on par.
- Campaigning in Israel
- AFP
- © JACK GUEZ
Therefore, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Trump's statement about the Golan is aimed at raising Netanyahu’s rating and bringing him closer to victory. A similar point of view is shared by a number of experts polled by the American media.
“No one is trying to pretend that Donald Trump does not interfere in the Israeli elections on the side of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” writes the Israeli newspaper.
Haaretz notes that from a practical point of view, Trump's plans will not change the international legal status of the Golan Heights, as the fact that the US president recognized this city as the capital of Israel did not change the situation of Jerusalem. The Jewish state will continue to control these territories anyway, and most countries, with the exception of some US allies in Latin America, do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over these territories.
In turn, Donald Trump in an interview with Fox Business said that his statement was not made to support Netanyahu in the elections, noting that this is a regional security issue. However, the president did not explain why he decided to make a statement right now.
“Netanyahu has opponents who criticize him, and any external support strengthens his position, especially from the US’s eternal ally,” said Orientalist Yuri Zinin, a leading researcher at MGIMO, in a conversation with RT.
Voices and finances
At the same time, experts note, another reason for Donald Trump’s statement is that the head of the White House itself, on the eve of new elections, needs the support of the influential US lobby in Israel. And next week, just during Netanyahu’s visit, the annual conference of the American Public Relations Committee of Israel (AIPAC), the largest organization promoting the interests of the Jewish state across the oceans, will be held in the United States.
“The influential Israeli lobby in the United States exists at different levels: legislative structures, the media, in the field of culture,” Zinin stresses. - Apparently, Trump thus wants to enlist their support. The more votes he gets, the more success he will have. ”
The American leader and his supporters repeatedly in recent months blamed their opponents from the Democratic Party for anti-Semitism, because they allowed themselves to criticize Israel. Trump seeks to represent himself as a defender of the interests of Israel and the American Jewish community.
- Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu
- Reuters
- © Ronen Zvulun
This position is popular among the traditional electorate of the Republican Party. As the sociological service Gallup noted in early March, despite a slight decline in Israeli support in American society compared to 2018, the majority of Americans (59%) still side with Israelis in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And among Republicans, this figure is even higher - 76%.
As Vladimir Vasiliev, a senior fellow at the Institute of the USA and Canada, said in an interview with RT, Trump and the Republicans, demonstrating unreserved support from Israel, are trying to strike at the Democrats' wallet.
"The sponsors of the Democratic Party, focused on Israel, no longer want to support the Democrats," said Vasiliev, RT. - And Trump uses a clever political move: to drag the pro-Israel lobby to his side. This is an attempt to deprive the Democrats of financial support and strengthen the financial position of the Republicans. ”
However, as Zinin emphasizes, Trump and Netanyahu’s ambitions will ultimately have to pay the people of the Middle East.
“Every leader wants to stay in power, but the problem of the Golan Heights is not easy, it will affect the general situation in the region, with which the fate of millions of people is tied,” the political scientist said.
Dangerous consequences
As Bloomberg columnist Hussein Ibish noted on the eve of Trump’s statement, the United States’s recognition of the Golan Heights as part of Israel violates one of the most important principles of the UN Charter - the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territories through war. If Washington recognizes the Golan as Israeli on the basis of the fact that the Israelis once captured them, then it will no longer have the moral right to condemn any annexation in the future, the journalist said.
As Haaretz stresses, Trump's plans may even harm Israel. Previously, although the international community did not recognize the Golan as Israeli, it was reconciled with the actual control of Tel Aviv over this territory. Now, universal attention is once again riveted on the heights, and diplomats vied with each other to condemn the Israeli occupation.
Vladimir Vasilyev has no doubt that by supporting Israel in words, the United States is more likely trying to solve its own problems in the region with the help of its Israeli colleagues, “to engage Tel Aviv in a possible confrontation with Iran.”
In the zone where Tehran and Tel Aviv have already encountered, a “new hotbed of tension” is being created, the expert reminds. The United States announced its withdrawal from Syria, but its Israeli allies will now be forced to "restrain" the SAR and Iran.
“It is precisely to the new clashes with Syria that the United States pushes Israel, because it is on its territory that the Jewish state strikes almost every month. This is absolutely obvious, ”the political scientist emphasizes.