Donald Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over Syria’s Golan Heights still raises reactions and controversy, on both the Arab and the international level, in the midst of its utter international rejection, except for Israel, whose prime minister welcomed it.
With Israel as the only exception, most of the Middle Eastern powers, along with international bodies headed by the United Nations, rejected Trump’s decision, and declared its commitment to the UN’s stance, which states that the Golan Heights is occupied Syrian land, based on international law.
Eric Goldstein, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, said that Trump is preparing to destroy the international law that protects the people living in the occupied Golan Heights. Adding that it could encourage other occupations to claim lands, establish settlements, and steal resources.
During the June 1967 war, Israel occupied Golan Heights in Southwest Syria, along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula. As a result of this war, tens of thousands of Syrians left their homes in the Golan Heights and sought other parts of Syria, with Israel prohibiting their return. Then, in 1981, Israel applied its own rules on the Golan Heights and unilaterally annexed it, as the United Nations Security Council condemned the annexation based on resolution 497, considering it null and without any effect.
A United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation military observer uses binoculars near the border with Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
Goldstein also added that the Trump Administration’s denial of the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights indicates disregard to the Syrian residents’ protection offered by international law, and that the human rights violation committed by Israel in the Golan Heights makes the Syrian residents in need of the law’s ongoing protection, so does Israel’s risk of establishing settlements and claiming natural resources.
Furthermore, the Arab region fears that Trump is taking further steps in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which might enable him later to deny this occupation, based on what he calls “the deal of the century.” Ever since Trump rose to power, his accomplishments that meet Israel’s interests have been multiplying, beginning with recognizing Jerusalem as an Israeli capital, then to what he calls “the deal of the century,” all the way to the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights was not all, but during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said that any agreement in the Arab region must include Israel’s right to defend itself. He also vowed to Netanyahu that “the US believes in the absolute right of Israel to defend itself.”
Trump’s latest step ignites the fire in a region that is already in flames, and places it on the horizon of a new war, and he also places his Arab allies in an awkward light, as they find themselves no longer able to defend their alliance. Further, the Gulf countries expressed their dismay at Trump’s decision, and assured that the Golan Heights remains under Syrian sovereignty, and so did Egypt, another US ally.
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