“The public, when they think about Syria, will be more concerned with the death and suffering than with the official loss of something that has been gone for a long time.” If only the international Left, which obsesses more with every perceived violation of a single Palestinian's dignity than with the murder of hundreds of thousands of Arabs at the hands of their own, would be so concerned.
31
Ask the Syrians living in the Golan. How many of them would want the area handed over to Syrian control? They know a good situation when they have it. I expect they prefer to leave the Golan under Israeli control.
37
Land theft in the West Bank and now the Golan by an extremist Israeli party and endorsed by an incompetent, and narcissistic US President. One thing is clear, international laws do not apply to Israel.
It's a matter of time before Donald is rewarded with a Trump Tower in Israel.
27
Think of the South China Sea. Now think of Kashmir. Next maybe the Baltic states and Finland. Keep going...
14
Ben Hubbard thinks that the point of international law is to guarantee Syria an infinte "do over" with regard to the Golan Heights:
Heads the Syrians win and destroy Israel, tails they break even.
Hubbard's description and choice of words is stunningly revisionist. He says:
"Israel had seized (the Golan Heights) in the Six-Day War of 1967."
and
"But Mr. Trump’s recognition of the seizure of one state’s land by another could make it harder for the United States to push back when strongmen carry out land grabs."
smuggly avoiding the reality that Syria repeatedly attacked Israel from the Golan, including the Syrian aggression in 1967. Reading Hubbards repeated assertions about Israel "seizing" the Golan, the uninformed reader will naturally come to the false conclusion that Israel started a war of aggression against Syria to gain the Golan, rather than the defensive nature of Israel stopping repeated attacks from the Golan.
Rather than prove Israel is an intentional violator of international law, what the Golan proves is the imperfect and incomplete nature of the law - that defensive "seizure" of a territory used repeatedly for aggression should be a goal of international law, not a violation.
For 20 years, Syrian repeatedly used the Golan for offensive military purposes. For the 50 years since, Israel has never once used the Golan to attack Syria.
39
The 120,000 Druze in Israel are full citizens and the majority of Druze men serve in the Israeli army, many as high-ranking career officers. In contrast, and in a break with their tradition, few of the 26,000 Druze in the Golan Heights accepted the offer of citizenship when Israel formally annexed the area in 1981.
Iran has Lebanon now, and has Syria as well. This is not welcomed by the surrounding Arab countries. It isn't about a "rallying cry" at all. Nobody supports the Israeli Golan being part of Syria, except Iran via Syria. You see, Assad has never had the capacity to make decisions for Syria, and doesn't now either. Thus the fate of a minority sect leader without the support of his own majority population.
9
Kruschev's gift to Ukraine, which he saw as remaining forever part of the Soviet Union, was cancelled when Russia took back Crimea. The U.S. and the EU slapped sanctions while the NATO was on the brink of initiating hostilities against Moscow.
But when Netanyahu prods Trump to gift him Syrian territory it's OK because illegal occupation by Israeli "settlers" built farms and vineyards?
16
I have been there but I would never use the phrase “stunningly beautiful “.
9
Hubbard intentionally ignores the difference between being the victim or the aggressor in an attempted "land grab."
Reading Hubbard's article, which repeatedly describes Israel as having "seized" the Golan, the uninformed reader naturally assumes that Israel started a war of aggression to take the Golan from Syria.
Reality is starkly different. Repeated attempts by Syria to crush Israel so that SYRIA COULD GRAB LAND resulted in Israel taking the only possible action to ensure peace - namely, preventing future Syrian attacks from the strategic Golan Heights.
For 20 years, Syria attacked Israel from the Golan. In the 50 years since, Israel has never attacked Syria from the Golan, and there has been peace in the Golan.
The problem is with an imperfect and incomplete "international law," not with Israel
22
The Golan Heights and the embassy in Jerusalem are minor issues. The West Bank and Gaza are the big issues.
Donald Trump is a dealmaker ready to make a deal on those big issues. Israel has always been ready to sit down and bargain. The Palestinians never have.
The Palestinians have a good cause; they just don't have good leaders. Too bad the leaders are failing the people.
12
The bottom line is that for both the predominantly Druze Arabs, and the Jewish population, the status quo is pretty good. The question of whether it is any of Trump's business to pontificate about it is a separate question.
8
Well this lays out some strategic reasons but in general I think Trump is taking an aggressive tack with the festering issues, like moving the embassy, and the message to the Arabs causing troubles in the west bank and Gaza is: "get busy negotiating before we decide you are irrelevant."
The excuses made by both sides of this argument are depressing.
3
Looks like the Russian Conspiracy Theorists are out and about. Where else should the Golan Heights go? To Syria? Really? Glad we have someone running the country that can make realistic decisions.
6
Do the photo editors even look at the pictures published here? This othewise interesting image of a soldier on the Golan is three stops too dark in every area. It's just a ridiculous misinterpretation of the scene, which as we can tell actually has a clear blue sky.
Putin is happily doing summersalts as it legitimizes his annexation of Crimea. What fun! What next? Only the den of thieves knows it.
7
@Ted
There is a big difference between the Golan Heights and Crimea. Before the 1967 war, Syrian troops stationed in the Golan Heights regularly fired cannons at the Israeli villages that were closest to the border. Who used Crimea as a base for firing cannons at Russian villagers?
13
@Ted
The difference Teddy boy is - if you want to make comparisons - that the Golan Heights has never been Israeli territory before 1967, but Crimea was Russian since 1783, with the Ukis in the picture only since 1954 and it was strictly an internal administrative matter.
5
To the victors go the spoils. Whether won by aggression or defense, the results are the same. As much as we put legal window dressing on it, this adage still governs most victories. When the Right to Self Determination for all parties, in an agreed upon common court of law, is legally and physically binding, that may change.
2
I have been to the Golan Heights - and concur wholeheartedly that it is absolutely beautiful. We spent one nite at a kibbutz there - which runs a hotel like house for visitors.
I lived over half a decade in Kuwait - way back in late 80's when PLO was terrorrorizing everyone but Israel to "free" Palestine.
Kuwait was a very open society in those days compared to today's Arab world.
A newspaper called Arab Times - had as its owner a very enlightened and westernized Kuwaiti owner.
I still remember that op-ed piece that he wrote with maps from times when Israel was first created to those 80's.
Every successive war, the Arabs and PLO waged against Israel - Israel expanded its borders - was the thrust of his argument.
And I still remember the question he asked of Arafat :"Mr. Arafat, how many wars will you wage before you lose all of Palestine?"
You would think Arabs would have learned from Egypt when it recovered Sinai after it's own defeat.
Peace dividends are huge.
And Israel wants to live in peace with its Arab neighbors.
But Arabs have their eyes wide shut, ear plugs on - only mouthing off old slogans.
God bless Israel.
25
Putin certainly has wrecked havoc in a very cunning way. He’s devised an “entente cordiale” of sorts among a quartet of crooks - Putin, Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia’s crowned prince MBS and Turkey’s Erdogan. Putin gets to enter the Middle East as a major player, the Prince solidifies his power with opponent/ critics killings as well as with fighting his arch enemy Iran in Yemen,; Erdogan gets away with autocracy and possibly elimination of Kurd “militants”, and, of course, Netanyahu gets the Golan Heights and forces the US into war with Iran thereby giving author Deborah Lipstead another chapter on her magnus opus. “Why are people reacting with anger?”
Of course, Trump subservient’s role to Putin helps. Everyone seems happy for now. But, If history is prelude, none will have a good ending
Syria attacked Israel and opened up the second front of the Six Day War. It was Syria's repeated violations of Israel's territorial integrity that resulted in Syria's loss of its territory at that time.
International law allows for retention of territory seized in defensive action. Israel's response was defensive and the resultant territorial acquisitions legitimate.
Israel has offered a "land for peace" deal on numerous occasions to the Syrians. Each time the offer was refused by the Syrian dictatorship. At what point does the international community stand up to this brutal dictatorship which has started 3 wars with Israel as well as murdering one half million of its own people?
After the Six Day War, the UN Security Council voted that Israel should have secure borders. The Security Council resolution in 1981 denouncing the acquisition of land by force failed to differentiate the basic legal principle that defensive actions are justifiable vis-a-vis Israel and its acquisition of the Golan.
When speaking about the Arab-Israeli conflict, history seems to begin in 1967. In 1920 when the League of Nations created the French and British Mandates, the Golan Heights was part of the British Mandate. In 1922 England, without the approval of the League of Nations, illegally transferred the Golan Heights to the French Mandate and became part of Syria. The Golan Heights should never have been included in Syria. The claim this is a violation of international law is just false.
21
@Asch
The 6 day war was started by Israel, as the first field trial of the policy of 'preventive self-defense' and apparently, it worked.
At the same time, justifying a land grab as spoils of victory in a war you started, just isn't kosher.
7
Prior to 1967, the Golan Heights was an area included in the territory of Syria. After Israel seized the area in the June 1967 war, Bashir al-Assad's father (Hafez al-Assad) took Israeli cash into his family in exchange for ceding the area to Israel. The Assad family personally profited. As the government of Syria in 1967, this Assad deal constitutes a legitimate sale, just like how the US acquired Alaska from Russia in the 1860s. End of story.
8
@markku
Never heard of this canard, but sounds funny. Really funny.
6
From the article:
"The Syrian military used it to shell the Galilee, and Israel seized it as a strategic asset that it considered necessary for its own security..."
Things were rather more complex then the author asserts. Here is what Moishe Dayan had to say about shelling by the Syrian military from the Golan:
"I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent.
It went this way: We would send a tractor to plough someplace where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end Syrians would get annoyed and shoot...."
8
"Gulf countries are more interested in partnering with Israel against Iran "
This statement refers to certain Gulf leaders who are in league with MBS of Saudi Arabia. It doesn't come close to reflecting the views of the Arabs in the street. And it is in the street where Israel's dangers lie.
6
Israel isn't going to give Syria the Golan Heights back, ever, the Syrians can't do anything about it, and nobody but the Syrians care. Annexation may violate written international law, but it is tolerated by every nation with influence on the issue, and tacit approval is about 99% of actual international law.
9
Mr Hubbard,
Whilst much of what you say stands to reason for a narrative. I remain deeply suspicious of any writing or opinion that conveniently misrepresents legal and historical facts and maps to suit a narrative. Last I looked there was no “Gulf” on any legal map including the UN’s. The “Gulf” is as much a geographical location as the “Pakistani Ocean” or even “Ocean”. There is only the Persian Gulf recorded in annals of history since its advent by the Ancient Persians and Greeks. Though this might not be palatable to you or many folks view it’s an undeniable fact. Renaissance palaces are adorned with such maps. This was long before the Arab tribes poured out of the Arabian peninsula 14 centuries ago invading all surrounding territories including Persia, converting their people by force to Islam and recording their victories and genocides and this was even much longer before they ever became nation states. Whilst you may be enthusiastically pushing for your narrative that in uniting against Iran, Arab nations may be willing to forgo and betray sovereign territory in what has been normal international discourse for 50 years. In presenting this view and in order to make it more palatable you shouldn’t use alternative facts, misrepresent history and geographical facts. It makes a mockery of journalism, discredits your arguments and makes you sound like your President who conveniently makes things up to suit his narrative. The NY Times has, can and should do better than this.
9
@Ross
I think the Persian Gulf is the one he means. The Gulf States (Saudi Arabia et al.), which lie to the east of the disputed area, and which have in the past been critical of Israel's actions in the captured territories, are distracted by other problems at the moment and perhaps for quite a few years into the future. They are not issuing the protests that would have been expected in the past.
4
I think you will find this is a deliberate prostrate journalistic policy, widespread these days for both political purpose to reduce the Persian and Iranian historical identity and rights, as well as Arab state plication. It is of course also astonishing reading the comments that so many folks defend illegal forceful annexation of sovereign lands such as recorded in facts and by UN resolutions. It just gives excuse to radicals on both sides and it’s a wildly short sighted view which will destabilize the region. It gives credit to the idea that rule of law means nothing and that might is right.
4
Israel should conquer more land around the Golan in Syria as a further buffer against whatever might arise from the ashes of Assad's regime. What are the Syrians going to do about it?
2
@AB
Sure, and just to be safe why not take over all the lands up to and including the Himalayan heights.
7
The 1967 Israeli borders are not viable given the permanent state of hostility in the area. The Golan Heights are essential to Israel's survival. It's been a done deal since Begin and the Knesset annexed the territory in 1981. Trump's recognition thirty-eight years hence is just public relations.
10
Justice Robert Jackson once said in permitting the government to take extraordinary action in an extraordinary situation that the "Constitution is not a suicide pact." Nothing in Israeli or international law should be construed to give rise to the necessity of Israel's destruction (or its putting itself in a situation where that could happen. By the way, I'm no Zionist, just a realist.
Some years ago, I visited the Golan and was shown the positions from which Syria fired down on Israel. No sane military mind would give up such a position to an avowed enemy. Those who think otherwise would perhaps sanction the return of Alaska to Russia or the granting of independence to Hawaiian natives, depriving the US of vital strategic territory.
By the way, the rule that territory is not to be taken by force was framed to punish aggressors. As I recall, Syria stupidly started a war, which it then had the misfortune to lose. Starting and then losing a war has historically had adverse consequences for the aggressor.
15
We are told that Israeli control of the Golan Heights is for the security of the State of Israel, that it will prevent mortars and tank shells from falling on innocent Israelis on the Israeli lands below.
This is first class deception. Israel wants to control water resources, pure and simple. It has stolen Palestinian water in the West Bank. Now it wants to control the source of that water as well.
If we were to believe the case for security of Israelis then the Golan would be an un-occupied de-militarized buffer zone. However Israel been developing settlements on the Golan exposing Israeli settlers to the very same threat that existed for Israelis below the Golan before the takeover.
7
Unnecessary publicity. Pure Trump.
3
There are no crocodile tears whatsoever to be shed over the consequences of unwarranted military aggression. In Israel's case, it acquired the Golan Heights by defeating such Arab aggression in 1967 and annexed them in 1981 as a matter of necessity, strategic land depth being critical to Israel's very survival and territorial security. The state of war has never really ended there, and never will so long as Islamic/Islamist mandates rule most of the region's leaders. "World opinion" as embodied in UNGA resolutions is a vapid, vaporous, chimerical siren in the minds of the neosocialist globalists; they mean nothing to a nation founded on the hot ashes of world apathy in the run-up to and conduct of World War II. And, in a genuinely moral, conscious universe, this is how it SHOULD be!
19
@Locke434. This argument is as logical as like saying, John Gotti was right to eliminate his opponents because they were making faces.
3
There seems to be far too many people who give lip-service to the value of having a rules-based society then selectively support regimes that repeatedly break the rules.
5
This article is an instant political response to a historic event. Syria repeating bombed Israel from the Golan Heights. Syria joined Jordan and Egypt in attacking Israel, Israel defended itself and won, taking the Golan Heights in the process.
Syria is not an ally of Israel today and gases it's own citizens. What Israeli in their mind would give the Golan Heights back to Syria.
21
Fully recognizing the Golan Heights as a part of Israel is the right thing to do. There is no rational argument for it being returned to Syria, the hostile power which used that high ground to wage war on Israel (along with allies) and consequently lost that land in an Israeli defensive action. (PS: Are the same people arguing that this Israeli territory is actually somehow still be considered Syria's land today, arguing that Texas still belongs to Mexico based on it having been Mexican territory in the 1820's?)
23
This is a case of righteous people trying to protect themselves, not a strongman carrying out land grabs. Its different.
23
I think Israel won the Golan Heights fair and square, when they were forced to defend themselves after they were attacked by several of their neighboring countries. If one nation wars upon another they should expect a heavy material price to pay if they are defeated. I am no fan of Israel but give them credit when it is due. If Syria wants the land back then they must find a diplomatic or military solution to get it back. That is the way the world has worked for millennia.
20
@tony. It won like a prize in a carnival?
1
It's important to remember that Israel was invaded in 'wars of elimination' in 1967 and 1973, and that the Golan "conquest" was, unusually, defensive rather than offensive.
Geopolitics has placed the Golan Druze population in an odd position. Though many Golan Druze prefer living in Israel, and have successfully applied pressure on Netanyahu to use airstrikes to protect Druze in Syria from groups like ISIS, the Golan Druze cannot express *too* much affiliation with Israel, because if Golan is ever returned to Syria, they might be forced to flee their communities or face extreme punishment for 'treason.'
Some of the commenters here don't seem to understand military technology. Rockets fired from afar might be stopped by Israel's Iron Dome defense system. But Iron Dome can't do much against anything from burning kites (a Hamas tactic) or conventional artillery, which can obliterate homes at too low an altitude and too small a range for most defensive systems to respond. As all military history suggests, it's easier to fire down, rather than up.
25
Trump, Netanhyahu, Cheney & Murdoc just want to get their hands on all the oil found under the Golan Heights in 2015. Dick Cheney and Rupert Murdoc on the board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_Energy
4
Yea makes sense.. takeover land and hold it long enough its yours.
3
@AUsman0786
Indeed. This has been U.S. policy regarding its own acquisitions ever since the U.S. was formed.
3
“the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible“ says the United Nations
Hello Mexico, would you please come and take back Texas and California.
15
@New World Where's all the concern over Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara, or the rampant anti-Semitism in the United Nations that destroys all credibility or weight of any "laws?" Not to mention China's annexation of Tibet, or the still-fighting over Kashmir?
13
@New World
Some say they already are -- in slow motion.
1
I guess if it is ok for Putin to take Crimea, it should be ok for Bibi to hold onto the Golan. Or maybe Putin is justifying his takeover with Bibi's?
3
@Hal Ironic to use Putin (Syria's dear friend) as your foil. But your comparison is false. Putin was the invader when he stole Crimea from Ukraine. Israel by contrast was the defender against an invader when he secured the Golan Heights in a defensive action against an unprovoked attack by Syria. It's no surprise that Syria and Russia are allies, they hold to the same tactics.
12
@Hal
Hal. Please cite any time Ukraine attacked Russia -- twice in order to destroy it. Please cite when Ukraine hosted terror groups in Crimea to attack Russia. Please cite when Ukraine would fire artillery from Crimea at Russian farming communities on the other side. Please cite when Ukraine called for Russia's destruction and refused to recognize Russia's right to exist.
If you can't I suggest you try some actual reading up on the subject before commenting. As of now, you are showing you have no idea what you're talking about.
11
@Hal
I wonder if Wesley and JW have considered that you may have meant it. The world isn't forcing Putin to give up Crimea. Why insist that Israel give up the Golan Heights? Is that what you meant?
1
Based on these ‘false equivalences’ being trumpeted in the article and by a number of commenters, guess the European colonizers never brutalized the Indigenous neither in North America nor in Australia or NZ. By the same token, the Japanese army never raped women in Nanking and atomic bombs were NEVER dropped on Japan by the US. And if they were attacked, they all DESERVED it.
Really, it was in their BEST interest otherwise they would have destroyed themselves or attacked us, anyway. Honesty, we did them a favour?!
How preposterous and POMPOUS does that sound?
Those advocating about Annexing territories as a security prerequisite must be a little fuzzy on WW2 history.
Annexing territories was what started WWII, which led to Holocaust and eventually the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian land in 1949.
Peace requires compromise from both parties. Building settlements and annexing territory isn’t one of them. And painting the Arabs as barbaric, uncouth, violent and unwilling to compromise doesn’t help either.
It feeds into the same XENOPHOBIA that the white nationalist movements thrive on in the West with Jews and Muslims bearing the brunt of its aftermath in the form of hate crimes.
Certainly, all this settlement building in East Jerusalem and West Bank needs to stop and illegal ones demolished and then Israel can expect recognition by the Muslim-majority countries like Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia and Gulf nations, not just Saudi Arabia
3
Good news.
6
The term "land grab" is reserved for select countries only (Israel).
The term does not apply to-
Russia/Crimea
US/Mexico,Native America
Britain/Falkland islands, Ireland
India/Kashmir
China/ South China sea islands, Himalayan territories
Other points to ponder.
-The Golan Heights currently has the densest collection of ancient synagogue ruins in the world (54), this factoid demonstrating a Jewish presence in the region for the past two millennia.
-The Syrian military would use the Golan's strategic elevation advantage to randomly hail sniper fire, killing and maiming Israeli farmers working inside the undisputed green-line from 1948-1967.
-The Israeli Military more recently has used the Golan Heights as a staging area to treat thousands of injured Syrian citizens who could not get medical care in the adjacent war zone.
32
Let's see...The U.S. has just helped bomb the Syrian people back into the Stone Age (never bothering with a tally of civilian lives lost), has now provided its stamp of approval to Israel's expansionist annexation of the Golan Heights taken from Syria, and then calls Syria's response muted.
Does the U.S. war machine know, or even care, what the term "war crimes" means.
2
WHAT BASIS? You attacked us, we fought back, you lost your land, you lost the war, you lost. Ask the Arab resident, do they want to live under Israel peace or Assad's madness?
17
@Bobb
OK let's ask the Arab resident. Let's put back the tens of thousands of Arabs who where displaced and then let's pose the question. At the same time there could be a referendum on annexation for the past and present Arab population of East Jerusalem.
2
I suppose Greg would have no qualms about living under constant shelling. True, war is more sophisticated today. But if you want to know how unsettling living under constant shelling is, ask some of your fellow French citizens who remember World War II . . . or those just east of you who used to live in the former Yugoslavia. It doesn't make for a pleasant existence. Or better yet, ask Israelis--who until the war of 1967 constantly had to take shelter in bunkers, lest they be shot dead--or "just wounded"--while working on farms beneath Syrian gunners. If Israel had a legitimate neighbor seeking peace with it, the Golan Heights would have been handed back years ago. Would you trust Syria now?
13
@Warren What do you mean, until 1967? Israelis have never had to stop hiding from shelling!
4
@Warren
If the Golan annexation was to protect Israelis below from the threat of constant shelling then why does Israel encourage Israelis to settle on the Golan where they could be exposed to the same threat from those terrible Syrians just across the new border?
The Israeli argument could have held water if there had been no settlements, but the argument is now seen as just another Israeli deception for yet another land and water grab.
2
Realistically none of this is about Israel and is really about trump using this as yet another shiny object to get re-elected.
6
@REZ
It's about Trump playing his assigned part in the Trump-Kushner-Netanyahu-MBS "Deal of the Century". The Trump Kushner real estate conglomerate will be paid later.
3
No one understands election meddling like Trump. Netanyahu desperately needed this shot in the arm.
5
What would we say to Saddam Hussein regarding Kuwait? Nothing, because we and our proxies hung him and killed his illegitimate sons. But if there was another dictator doing the same thing, threatening our strategic alliances, and our supply of energy, we would tell tell him that might makes right. Try it and see what happens. They could also be reminded of the highway of death that will await their retreating forces.
1
This reads more like something out of the Old Testament than in 2019:
Advantage Kind David as he could look out high from upon his conquered plateau to the valley below for any sign of the encroaching Philistine armies. Now he hath vanquished them.
Whatever strategic advantage disappeared with radar and satellites. Can we please move on in Israel.
1
The Druze men in the picture don't really want the area 'returned to Syria'. They are not stupid - their lives in the Golan as part of Israel is peaceful and SAFE while Syria is a dangerous MESS!
And equating Israel in the Golan with Russia in Crimea or the late Saddam Hussein in Kuwait is nonsense. Russia and Hussein INVADED those countries. Israel was defending themselves in a war, they never 'invaded' the area. People should stop making that comparison.
12
“what would we say to Saddam Hussein in Kuwait? “
This is a completely different situation. Did Kuwait attack Iraq multiple times with genocidal intent? Syria did to Israel, and they have never renounced that intent.
8
“The seizure of one’s land by another”. Shouldn’t this phase, which stands alone in the conclusion, ?be at the least coupled with the fact that the “seizure” occurred in connection with an attack and war initiated by Syria in an attempt to destroy Israel?
7
I have no problem with this. The Golan Heights were used by Syria to rain down artillery on settlers in Israel. Israel has always put existential security above all else. Syria is too busy trying to put back together it's shattered country, and as long as they rely on Iranian military backing Israel has good reason to keep the heights.
12
Remember- the Golan came under Israeli control after Syria attacked Israel with genocidal intent.
Israel would have gladly ceded this territory in exchange for peace with Syria (as they did with Egypt) but Syria has neither the will nor the ability to assure peace and they have paid the price for their hatred.
Comparing this to Kuwait or Crimea ignores that Israel was responding an attempted invasion.
9
The Arab nations that support Israel are fascist monarchies. Iran is the closest thing to a democracy outside of Israel in the ME. But Israelis led by a fascist rightwing government that seeks to dominate and wants war with Iran. They just want the US ti fight it for them.
2
Who are the democratic Arab governments lined up against Israel?
1
" But Mr. Trump’s recognition of the seizure of one state’s land by another could make it harder for the United States to push back when strongmen carry out land grabs.
“The notions of international order and international law are going to take a big hit here,” Mr. Ibish said. “Right now, what would we say to Saddam Hussein in Kuwait? ‘We don’t want you to be there.’ ‘O.K., on what basis?’ "
The difference might be: Israel was defending itself from attack, including being shelled from the Golan; did Kuwait attack or threaten Iraq?
Similarly, did Ukraine (Crimea) attack or threaten Russia? (There is though an argument that Russia felt U.S. pressure via Ukraine and other moves.)
5
"The Golan Heights is a stunningly beautiful and strategic area that gives whoever controls it a distinct military advantage over the surrounding region. The Syrian military used it to shell the Galilee, and Israel seized it as a strategic asset that it considered necessary for its own security, displacing tens of thousands of the area’s Arab inhabitants in the process.
It was a stinging slap to the Arabs, who saw the Israeli occupation as yet another example of an international order that failed to enforce its own rules."
This logic is faulty. Syria's use of the Golan to shell Israel was the clearest possible violation of the "international order." Then Israel launched a war of aggression against Israel, and even worse violation of the international order. Unfortunately, they lost. There is no basis to claim that the "international community" must restore Syrian "rights" to the Golan.
My analysis above applies equally to all the territory Israel has won in defensive wars. It's time to end the charade of "land for peace."
8
The UN resolution against annexation of territory by force should be amended to specify that this is illegal for an aggressor, but if the attacked country gains territory in the course of self defense it should be allowed to keep it.
Anything else rewards the aggressor and there must be an inherent risk for starting a war.
Besides that, it would be strategically foolish for Israel to give up the Golan Heights in the absence of a stable Syrian state with which a trustworthy peace agreement can be struck.
9
I just graduated high school the month that heroic Israeli soldiers took the Golan Heights and saved Israel in a close and desperate fight. We saw some of it on TV, but nothing like today's norms.
Didn't realize this was a current US national security issue. Maybe it's just good housekeeping? Like dusting on top of the fan blades and on top the wall art? Even Trump gets it right sometimes and the Israelis will be happy too.
Rightly, Israel will never leave the Golan. I think that ground is sacred now. But... what was it about "US national security?"
4
So if the Arabs don’t care, why should we be making such a fuss about it? It is interesting to note how sneaky Obama was in undermining Syria without directly confronting it. At the same time he was looking to Russia to intervene with Assad to help him save face over his failure to enforce the red line. Obama is being touted as so masterful in foreign affairs, but I can see how other powers in the Middle East not only Israel but the Gulf states would find it frustrating and confusing to deal with him. I don’t think even he could explain his own policies or non-policies. Then we have that peculiar Iran deal engineered by Kerry which helped the Shia cause and gave Iran and Russia further influence in the region. Go figure that one out. Trump, however, is very clear and seems to have called the right shot on this one. In the meantime the Democrats, CAIR and other pro-Shia groups can try to make political hay of it but Trump has outplayed them. I do wonder how the Democrats can be so worried over Russian collusion when they themselves have been such a patsy to Russia in ceding influence to it in the region.
2
I travelled the Golan Heights last year. There are a great many reasons to be frustrated with the actions of the State of Israel, but on this issue, I agree. Israel should integrate the Golan within its borders due to the strategic military importance of the area. To not do so would be irresponsible.
7
Syria doesn't really exist anymore, even though Assad, with Russian and Iranian help, has reestablished military control over significant portions of once lost territory.
In the rule of tooth and claw that defines the Middle East, the recognition of Israeli control of the Golan is a minor matter compared to Netanyahu's drive to colonize the West Bank with Israeli settlements.
3
The writer forgot three vital aspects necessary for understanding why the Golan Heights is no longer " an Arab Rallying Cry. " First, Washington has used the authorterian Arab States, especially Saudi Arabia in alienating the Arab people and in ensuring the submission of other Arab regimes to Washington. Second, under the Obama administration concentrated efforts were made to fragment Syria. In fact Ambassador Ford in 2011 visited various Syrian cities to incite revolt against the Syrian government. Obama , despite his broad historical and political knowledge of the area, were determined to please Netanyahu of Israel by weakening Syria and other secular Arab regimes. Third, Washington understands that the only way to erase Arab identity is to focus on sectarian identity and inciting strife. Thus, many Arabs have started to think that whatever is done to the leadership of Syria who are Shia is a blessing.
3
Who is Israel supposed to give the Golan back to?
To the Hezbollah terrorists who control much of Syria?
To the Iranians who oversee and finance them and are trying to dominate Israel's northern neighbor?
To their Russian enablers?
To a Syrian government that exists principally as a creature of Hezbollah, Iran and Russia and that has neither the desire or the ability to make piece with Israel?
155
@Allan
to the Syrian government (like it or not) as per international law.
9
@Allan
To Syria, when Israel will accept to talk to its neighbour (reconstituted into a full-fledged nation). If it has found reasons to talk to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordania...it should be acceptable at some point. Having held the Golan Heights since 1967 does not give Israel long term territorial rights. After all, Arabs had held Palestine much longer.
9
@jsaintcyr6
"Arabs" did not hold "Palestine" much longer. Palestinians historically included both Jews and Arabs for centuries, so there has always been a Jewish presence in the region (not nation) called Palestine.
17
Borders are an artificial construct that is dynamic in nature. We would all like to think that somewhere around 1945 the world froze and ever since, disputes are arbitrated by wine-sipping diplomats. If only.
People not always get to the right for self determination (when was the last time the Berkley campus saw massive rallies in favor of Catalan independence?) and at times, borders change as a result of a war. C'est la vie.
At some point (50 years, 100 years, name your number), you have to drop it, recognize the status quo, and move on. Otherwise, you only help to perpetuate conflict. What Trump did (and God knows I do not agree with him on practically anything) is exactly that and contrary to the reflexive reaction of the Left, he is actually helping bring about a future peace between Syria and Israel.
Of course, grudges in the Middle East can easily last a thousand years (the Sunni Shi'a conflict dates from the seventh century) so that 100 year number may be way too optimistic...
9
Recall that we the USA got Florida and much of the Southwest by military force. Let’s ask a UN committee if we should give these back.
29
That was before the construct of any ‘rules-based’ World Order or the litany of International laws and treaties that have since been signed by the West and a host of other countries around the world.
If we are to ‘regress’ to such a state, then there wouldn’t be any need for ‘allies’ or sanctions for what are now perceived as ‘common threats’ such as Iran or ISIS for Israel.
They are just entities or countries that are thousands of miles AWAY from the US and thus hold no relevance for Americans, including the state of Israel or its policies.
4
@Mel
Which war was that? I recall from my history that John Quincy Adams got it with the Florida Purchase Treaty. Maybe you are thinking of what the US got from a war with Mexico about three decades later. That did not include Florida.
4
@Mel
Do not pretend to be ignorant of the laws established after WW2.
2
I spent last High Holy Days in the Golan, with a family composed of Bulgarian, Chilean and Iraqi Jews. It's one of my favorite parts of Israel but that doesn't change the fact that the Trump administration has made a serious mistake in the way it went about recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan. This actions subverts international law and was designed specifically to assist Netanyahu's campaign. In the long run it will weaken a rules-based international order and embolden tyrants all over the globe.
12
Trump doesn’t care about the long term. He specializes in short term bankruptcies and his politics show precisely that.
8
The "seizure" of Golan wasn't a "land grab" like Russia's Crimea land grab. The Golan was liberated in defensive conquest. The Syrians used the plateau to shell Israelis living below on a daily basis. After diplomatic efforts to stop the Syrian aggression failed, Israel took control of its destiny and kicked out the aggressors. Never in the history on mankind has a nation been compelled to return land to the aggressor. Nations' borders have been formed by war. That is a fact. An aggressor has no right to complain if it loses territory in a war it started.
32
Geneva Conventions?
@Ari yeah, Russia wasn't big enough already.
It is true that a few arab countries are aligned with Israel but many are not. Also the few that area are with the leaders and not the people.
The Golan Heights Trump announcement was meant with a shrug because they know America and Trump have no moral leadership any more in thought, word or deed in the world.
We are more aligned with Russian, The Phil., Brazil, No. Korea than countries with moral leadership like New Zealand, Western Europe, nordic countries etc.
4
@Paul
Even those few Arab countries that are more or less secretly aligned with Israel are not really. Their despotic , self-serving rulers are. The people of these countries are not aligned with Israel and the leaders keep their actions secret to avoid popular uprisings.
2
@Jack Robinson- agreed and you are agreeing with me.
Don't get me wrong both Israel and the arabs are far from clean re war crimes or provocative conduct.
This Golan Heights Trump/Israel thing is just the latest example.
1
This is basically nothing other than recognizing reality. This area has been annexed and only military force would reverse that. Perhaps some are seeing who their real enemies are and who could be a reliable friend. One can hope.
5
Israel did not invade Syria in a war of aggression. Iraq invaded Kuwait in a war of aggression. There is no equivalency.
40
If you aggressively attack and threaten other countries, you might lose some of your territory (see, e.g., Germany, Japan). That is a perfectly fine message to send to the world that in no way justifies Iraq's conquest of Kuwait or Russia's seizure of Crimea. People who can't make that distinction are being deliberately obtuse.
29
As Iran solidifies it's influence in it's new puppet state Syria the issue will once more come to the fore front. Iran would love to have their puppets Lebanon and now Syria ready to launch missiles from there.
6
For Iran & Saudi Arabia, it's imperative to figure out how to disengage from the current cold war they're entangled in. This state of affairs isn't going to end well for either party and will only destabilize and ruin the Muslim world. We already see its pernicious effects in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. Though, it seems to me that the West & Israel are just fine with them bickering among each other and dividing the Muslim world. Divide and conquer, indeed.
The legacy of the Brits lives on, eh?
3
Nobody needs to divide the Muslim world. It's been divided since the death of Muhammad. Sunnis and Shiites disagree on the fundamental pillars of their religion.
Islam and all religions need to fit into a secular world, not the other way around.
3
Sunni and Shiite do not "disagree on the fundamental pillars of their faith.". Actually, they agree on pretty much everything except the order of succession of the caliphs after the death of the prophet. Which is what makes their centuries of bloodshed even stranger.
2
@asfghzs Yeah, like the Muslim world is a paragon and beacon of order and peace and stability. A real example for the world.
1
The Ottomans did a much better job of administering the Middle East than the players today.
5
You might ask the Armenians about that conclusion.
1
Really, it's the 21st century and we're talking about sanctioning land acquisition by military means?!?
(Leaving aside our role in the recent decade where Syria has torn itself apart: the slightest grasp of history understands the direct line between the Syrian civil war and Dick Cheney's decision to invade Iraq. Now, at a moment when Trump and Bibi are in flagrante delicto for all the world to see, the US must remove its fat finger from the scale of the Golan Heights.)
5
@NDGryphon
So, the 21st century is the demarcation. Every land acquisition by military means before the 21st century is okay? Well, Israel 'acquired' the Golan Heights during a war in the 20th century - so, it must be okay. Thanks!
1
@Maxie Read more carefully: what's problematic is the fact that it's being sanctioned in the 21st century, despite decades of considered international legal opinion to the contrary.
Looks like after the death of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and dislocation of millions more the mission of Syrian Civil War is about to be accomplished.
1
@M Saifi
Could you explain what you mean, please?
1
Could it be that the native inhabitants of the Golan Heights prefer the status quo to returning to Syria?
70
@Phantomnyc
They certainly do. Most Druze are grateful (and very lucky) to be out of Syria.
9
Let’s ask them? Oh but wait, they have already been OUTNUMBERED by the Israeli settlers, so no such action would ever be taken that could jeopardize the current status quo or ‘inconvenience’ the current settlers to the area.
5
@Phantomnyc who do you mean by "the native inhabitants"? The 26,000 Jewish settlers who have moved there since Israel seized it? The 22,000 Druze who remained? The tens of thousands, perhaps 100,000 Druze who left or were forced out and never allowed to return?
9
Looks like a strong move to the one state solution where the majority will represent only a minority of its inhabitants. Congratulations and wise move.
@Marty Rowland, Ph.D., P.E.
Actually, the Golan is sparsely populated. I see a big string of alphabet salad after your name which I'm sure you delight in waving to everyone on the blog: PhD and PE. But what about CS after your name (common sense)?
1
The Druze are Druze, not Arab.
Most of the Arab world has gradually accepted the fact that they can live with Israel, quite peacefully. Squabbles over tiny slices of land (look at the map) are a waste of time.
The picturesque demonstration shown is only the Druze way of protecting themselves from reprisals in case the Golan is ever given to Syria. Very unlikely, but the Druze, like many other peoples, think in terms of centuries, and who can predict the future that far ahead? Such demonstrations don't cost them anything---Israel is a democracy, and people are free to demonstrate against the policy of the state.
The diehard fanatics, the Palestinians who don't accept Israel, will gradually fade, as did the unreconciled English Jacobites or the extreme branches of the IRA. But that takes centuries. Where are the refugees from the 30 Years' War? Eventually, reality is accepted.
14
@Jonathan Katz
The land is very small indeed. A jet airplane can fly over Israel in a total of five minutes.
5
@Jonathan Katz
If you think that people of the Muslim faith will roll-over and accept injustice, then I'd say this is very very dangerous thinking.
“..partnering with Israel against Iran” says it all. It is always one group against another. Is there no one in the Middle East seeking peace and partnering between between all countries there? All this conflict is because people identify with their religion instead of common humanity. Religious identity is the most insidious. Wearing a religious mask, people have committed so many atrocities. Imagine a world without religion and make it a reality.
1
@Citizen
It's religion and tribalism. Not always the same thing.
1
No-one likes Bashar, and all of us will wholeheartedly agree that he is a brutal tinpot dictator. But that aside, there are many logical holes in the pro-Israel arguments here regarding the Golan. I think most commenters are walking themselves into a "might is right" argument.
While the Golan may have been very strategic in the mid 20th century era of warfare where rocketry was much newer with much more limited access to Israel's third world foes, and holding the high ground was crucial to prevent artillery shelling of the Gallilee, in this day and age where Israel's adversaries in the area (Syria and Hezbollah) possess thousands of rockets from short to intermediate to long ranges, that can be fired in large numbers from much further back in Syria proper, holding a large piece of another country's land is not strategic, its counter-strategic. Syria can shell any part of Israel if it felt suicidal enough to do so, and Israel (which is 100 times stronger militarily) can respond with overwhelming force if it did (which is exactly why Syria doesn't).
Israel is still occupying the Golan just because it wants the land and feels entitled to it after winning war after war 50-70 years ago. That simple. The main driver is the rich water resources of the Golan. Secondary is tourism (ski resorts etc). Tertiary is because whoops tens of thousands of Israelis settled there, and well, who likes giving stuff back?
If you think that's OK in this day and age, you think might makes right.
42
@Ray Indeed in a defensive war I do think that might makes right, and your arguments have holes, artillery is cheaper than long range rockets, and more effective as well. I also hear there might be a lot of oil under there as well.
12
@Ray
If you have never been to Mount Bental, you may think artillery and rockets obviate the need to hold the high ground in a war.
But anyone who has been there (it is now a tourist site) knows that a dozen soldiers with machine guns and air support can hold off thousands of attackers.
The Israelis are simply not going to hand it back to anyone who they don't fully trust.
And in that neighborhood, they don't trust anyone.
22
@Ray
Yes, the small amount of tourism gained in the Golan and of course the vaunted Israeli ski team is pushing for the retention of the Golan. There is no security aspect of it.
The fact that the country is barely the size of New Jersey and is surrounded by hostile populations, not to mention Iranians who have decided Syria is now home should be ignored.
20
The Gulf States are so interested in "partnering" with Israel that no one else cares about what happens to Arab countries and this move?
Washington Post March 22 at 8:01 AM
BEIRUT — Syria and its Russian and Iranian allies slammed President Trump’s call to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Friday, inflaming regional tensions at a time when the Trump administration is seeking to curtail Iran’s expanding influence.
A statement by Syria’s Foreign Ministry said the move would increase Syria’s determination to recover the territory occupied by Israel “by all available means,” and Russia and Iran both said it violated international law.
Turkey, a U.S. ally, said it risked creating a new Middle East crisis.
3
@David
Iran is not an Arab country. Nor is Russia.
@Mark Shyres
Nor is Turkey.
A smart move. You mean like leaving Gaza unilaterally and being bombed from there ever since. And by the way Israel did offer to return Golan with a peace agreement which was rejected by Syria, unlike Egypt which got back Sinai.
Funny how people write their prejudices without any knowledge.
32
“Right now, what would we say to Saddam Hussein in Kuwait? ‘We don’t want you to be there.’ ‘O.K., on what basis?’”
On what basis? That's easy. Might is right.
@Karl Gauss Who cares for talking, they were ejected by force and "right" is quite subjective.
@Karl Gauss,
Please clarify.
After the 1948 war, a demilitarized zone established along the Israel/ Syria border in the Golan. The article then states:
"The Syrian military used it to shell the Galilee," and Israel seized it for it's security, but -
"Former Israeli General Mattityahu Peled said that more than half of the border clashes before the 1967 war "were a result of our security policy of maximum settlement in the demilitarised area."[80] Israeli incursions into the zone were responded to with Syrians shooting. Israel in turn would retaliate with military force....
In 1976, Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan said that Israel provoked more than 80% of the clashes with Syria, although historians say the remark was part of an informal conversation.[82] The provocation was sending a tractor to plow in the demilitarized areas. The Syrians responded by firing at the tractors and shelling Israeli settlements.[83][84] Jan Mühren, a former UN observer in the area at the time, told a Dutch current affairs programme that Israel "provoked most border incidents as part of its strategy to annex more land".[85] UN officials blamed both Israel and Syria for destabilizing the borders.[86]"
Wikipedia entry.
A small, but essential omission from the article, which shows some evidence that security had little to do with the Illegal Israeli annexation which was probably part of a long range "Greater Israel" project.
5
@Jack Robinson Wikipedia? Seriously? You'll never win any arguments by selectively cutting and pasting Wikipedia nonsense
1
“Right now, what would we say to Saddam Hussein in Kuwait?" More importantly, what now can we say to Putin about the Crimea and eastern Ukraine?
4
@sterileneutrino We can say or do whatever we think best for us, there is no need to be consistent.
1
Apples and oranges.
1
Just the fact that the most despicable regimes in the middle east are siding with Israel against Iran makes me wonder if we are on the right side of this.
2
@J c But Iran is the most despicable regime in the middle east. The one that wants nuclear weapons, the one opposed to us, etc. No wondering needed, Iran, Syria and Russia are allies, we oppose them.
1
@J c Iran is no angel either!
Golan can never go back to Syria even demilitarized. It’s just what the name says, a high point where artillery can rain down on Israel. It’s never going back, never.
79
@Jibsey
Artillery shells could "rain down on Israel" from hundreds of locations well beyond the Golan. It is the rains of Golan that Israel wants to direct into West Bank settlement swimming pools.
6
I still fail to understand how a people who suffered so immensely at the hands of an occupying power during World War II (not to mention all they suffered in earlier centuries) seem to think it is now fine to annex seized land and oppress its non-Jewish inhabitants. Sorry, I just don’t get it. This kind of land grab only ensures that Israel will never live in peace. If anyone has to scratch their heads and ask why rockets periodically head into Israeli territory, this is why.
61
@LIChef
It is a critical defensive position, like the Sudete Mountains in Czechoslovakia. Had the Czechs held on to them, there would have been no WWII, because the Germans knew they could never break that defensive line.
The Golan Druze do not think themselves oppressed. If they did, nothing would stop them moving to Syria. They know that life is much better in Israel.
30
What’s hard to understand. If people stand on the hill which overlooks your family and shoot at you all the time, it makes sense to capture that hill so as to protect your children. Had they given back the Golan, it would have fallen to ISIS.
28
@LIChef
You are mixing up the north and the south here. As always when it comes to this topic, easy does not work:
As you can read, the Druze population in the Golan was not oppressed. They were actually offered Israeli passports. Druze Israelis are well known to make a career in the military.
Compare that with Gaza, where the unilateral retreat by no one less but Ariel Sharon resulted in a failed state, where the own people are terrorized and all help from outside is misused to keep the war going....
27
Amazing how many top approved comments are pro Israel. The Israeli bots are in full deployment today. I grew up in 1969s NYC suburbs and if you were not Italian or Irish you were Jewish, many of us had first generation American parents so I have absolutely no problem with Jewish people.
My problem is with the Israeli government which I despise. They are a apartheid government.
9
You insult the people of South Africa by comparing their suffering to the Arab population in Israel and the territories. There is no comparison. Arabs serve in the Knesset, the Supreme Court, the police, receive the same health care. The most affluent religious group in Israel are Christian Arabs.
5
I hate Trump, but... Bravo
7
It is simply unthinkable that this man who STOLE OUR ELECTION - with the help of Putin, Netanyahu and their Interntaional Mafia 0.01% Robber Baron/Radical religion Good Old Boys' cabal - is speaking for MY United States of America.
He does not speak for me or the majority of informed, honest people I know. I sincerely hope he does not speak for people with power (not IN power) in OUR political/legal/military/secret service complexes.
If not they must step up NOW and put an end to this imposter and those around him who are trying to destroy OUR America and the world in their insatiable, morally/ethically bankrupt, socially unconscious greed with their inherited/stolen wealth.
5
@njglea Well Gee we really know how you think. The president won by the constitution. Nobody is trying to destroy my country, rather they are attempting to restore it. Perhaps you need a different country without a constitution like ours.
1
The difference is who the aggressor is in the war that led to the land seizure (“land grab”). In Kuwait it was Saddam, in Crimea it was Russia, etc. In Golan it was Syria! Duh. If they did not want to risk loss of territory they should not have attacked Israel.
12
The Golan Heights belongs to Israel. They won it fair and square in a war started by the Arab states, and it is now crucial to the protection of the Israeli border. If the Arabs retain control they will use it as a staging ground for even more rocket attacks on Israel. Stay strong Israel. Do not bow to pressure from the same neighboring countries and Islamic terrorists groups who continue to seek your destruction.
27
So there you have it, our involvement in Syria was always at the pleasure of Israel, including the CIA early infiltration. We're going to have to redefine what it means to be Patriotic to include Wall St and every CEO in it. Of course Trump will spin this as in the interest of America, but doesn't believe its AIPAC he's courting. Around now we're witnessing his desperation and grasping for all the help he can get. Russia isn't the only thing he should be brought down by. If tax fraud was good enough to nab Capone it should be good enough to nab Trump; not to mention that insurance fraud. There …is documented evidence for both. Proceed on Mueller. Do your job.
1
Guys, you don't learn history from the NYT writers or editors. All this hoopla about Israel stealing land from Syria, as compared to what Russia recently did with the Crimea (which did once belong to the Czarist empire) or China's takeover of Tibet, is undiluted hogwash. Some commenters below do present the history of Syrian aggression before 1967. I will also add that both Syria and Egypt, for months prior to the 6 day war, were gloating, openly, about their plans to once and for all obliterate (pre 67) Israel. That is why Israel had to pre-emptively bomb the Egyptian air force, which didn't mean they started the war. If you read up you will learn that the UN peacekeepers in the Sinai withdrew prior to the war, out of necessity to save themselves.
Peace in exchange for peace and full acceptance is the ONLY formula in the Middle East that will work. Land returned could follow, if the mentality of the Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian mindsets will change. That could take generations. Brainwashing and cultural/religious beliefs may never fully allow for that. Their thinking is very different than ours. Though some anti-Israel comments are strangely aligned with some Middle East thinkers.
20
@Rosalie Lieberman
"Their thinking is very different than ours. "
Not sure who is "them" and who is "us", but I would suggest that those that believe in human rights and international law far far outnumber those that believe Israel has rights to the land and resources of the Golan and the West Bank.
1
Why does the Arab world as a whole not seem to understand the concept of "if you lose a war, you lose territory"
24
@Ben L. The problem is, 'if you win a war, you gain territory.' That idea is an invitation to aggressive war.
5
I would ask you "Why do you not understand the UN prohibition on seizing territory by force?"
1
@Hunt
No, but if you start a war and lose territory, don't complain. Syria shot at Israeli farmers in the demilitarized zone in April of 1967 and it's ally, Egypt, sealed the Tiran straights and ejected the UN peace keeping force in May of 1967. All of these were acts of war that lead to the actual military actions of the Six Day War.
10
"....between the modern states of Syria, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon...."
Finally, someone got the history right. Britain and France created these places after they divided up the spoils at the end of WW I.
But for some reason, only Israel is considered "new."
15
Israel seizes the Golan in defending themselves. The comparison between Saddam is a disgrace. Saddam went into Kuwait to clearly seize land. Israel should have kept more land in my opinion.
16
Israel should consider returning the Golan Heights when Syria is a peaceful democracy and Hisbollah is a nonviolent religious movement devoted to the welfare of all the Lebanese people and not a proxy for the mullahs of Iran. Until then it should remain under Israeli control despite the mendacity of Trump and Netanyahu for whom this tweet / announcement was as Netanyahu’s biographer, Anshel Pfeffer, suggested, timed ahead of the Israeli prime minister’s visit to the White House next week as a possible attempt to distract Israel’s electorate from another brewing Netanyahu scandal.
You don’t have to support all of this statement by Israels corrupt prime minister (He did it again,” the Israeli prime minister said of an American president who seems determined to make every wish of Israel’s far-right nationalist leader come true. “First, he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. Embassy here,” Netanyahu said, “then he got out of the disastrous Iran treaty and reimposed sanctions, but now he did something of equal historic importance — he recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights” ) or the Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians to agree with certain realities.
You can both support Israel and criticize its actions just as we can support our nation while criticizing the corrupt gangster like president who leads it. Only absolutists (just another fanaticism) believe otherwise.
7
This move by Trump is ill timed and will probably result in further isolation of Israel. Trump did it for the reason he does everything; for his evangelical base. That being said, why not recognize Israel's sovereignty over Golan? Syrian sovereignty was only due to maps drawn up by British and French colonial administrators. The Arabs rule over 99% of the land in the middle east, they don't really need more. The Arabs only want the Golan, because the Israelis have it. Time to move on, Syria needs to fix everything about its destroyed country, they don't need the Golan any more than Russia needs Crimea
4
The single entity standing in the way of peace in the middle east is the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars exported to Israel each year.
No U.S. taxpayer has ever been asked to vote on this sponsorship and when we have objected to it we have been consistently harassed.
It is past time that Israel stood alone. The world owes Israel nothing. If it wants to exist, let it pay its own way.
12
@Alabama
It’s nice that you think the problems of the ME are distinct and will stay within the region if we were to withdraw but we live in a global community where the economic and political realty is such that our presence in other parts of the world ensures the comfort of our little lives back here in the US. It’s not something most people seem mature or honest enough to acknowledge when they assess this situation from their IKEA armschairs. I’m not for the military industrial complex, but it seems like it’s what we have.
@Alabama Not to mention those say 100 nuclear weapons. Peace could happen when Palestinians accept the deal, they have never done that.
5
@BMM The same was true of slavery in 1861.
Re: "Once a Cry .. Not Anymore". It would appear that no sensible person wants to support Bibi's extreme right-wing politics, save Mr. Trump. For the Arabs forcibly to "rally", Bibi would win voters through the perception of an intensified Arab threat. Most worrying is not Mr. Trump's rants, but his implicit validation of other UN condemned land occupations (eg. Crimea). Another win for Putin!
1
I have a sense that in maybe 10 years or so, when Israel officially annexes the West Bank and Gaza, world response will be a similar shrug. That seems to be what Likud is planning and counting on.
Where will the Palestinians be at that time? Dissolved, as an ethnic group. Departed or dead as individuals, I suppose.
Can anyone see any other realistic future, when the world simply accepts expansion by military force?
1
Overall , a very fair and competent report by Mr. Hubbard .
As to Syria - what is Syria ? and which Syria ?
The one millions escaped to re-populate Germany and Scandinavia ?
The one the maligned Kurds want to leave ?
The one that persecutes the Druze ?
The one who serves as the personal fiefdom of the dictatorial Assad family ?
The one where the Russians are building an immense military presence ?
The one that serves as training ground for Hizbullah ?
The one where the Iranians are building forward bases to launch against Israel ?
The one with a brutal regime using chemical weapons ?
The one where a civil war has been raging for years ?
The one where ISIS was established and became prominent ?
Yes , this is the Syria crying foul , enlisting "International Law" to its aid.....
Give me a break....
12
Democrats need to loudly voice disapproval of this action by Trump. Obama often was dismissive of Israel’s concerns. Silence by Democrats will imply that they agree with Trump and that Obama was wrong.
1
@Richard Winchester Well since Obama was wrong perhaps they need to be quiet.
You state: "But Mr. Trump’s recognition of the seizure of one state’s land by another could make it harder for the United States to push back when strongmen carry out land grabs." This was hardly a land grab. The Israeli's were attacked, twice, and the end result was the control of land from which Syrians constantly shelled Israelis from the heights to the land below. This is the price of tyrants pay for their naked aggression, and the Israelis and the United States are morally, and legally justified in recognizing this reality.
7
Also, it's a good thing that these countries have been more preoccupied with their own affairs than Arab solidarity. Pan-Arabism was a disaster. It subsumed national identities under an artificial, monolithic Arab identity and erased ethno-religious minorities like Berbers, Copts, Kurds, Assyrians, ancient Greeks, Druze, Yazidi, Shabak, Turkmen, Alawites—some of them peoples who had lived there a millennium before the Arabs.
3
Israel seems to be the shadow control of our politics now as much as Fox News is for Trump's brain.
Why this abrupt move by Trump to up-end 50 years of status quo? That is, other than Trump playing to the pro-Israel Republican base and that of Netanyahu who has his own political problems.
Complaints of Russia in Crimea (or anywhere else) will be met with silence
2
Possession is nine tenths of the law. The Golan Heights have been Israeli territory since 1967, by any geopolitical definition except that used by United Nations bureaucrats.
Acknowledging this is not a concession to the Israelis. It's just geopolitical realism. We can debate whether Israel deserves the territory, or if it owes reparations for taking the land. But let's stop pretending that the facts on the ground are not the facts on the ground. There are no 'alternative facts' in geopolitics.
61
@Jack
Not in the law.
There are many geopolitical quagmires that need not be disturbed or waded into by countries like ours (the US) lest they reignite the tensions that created the quagmire in the 1st place. When will the USA learn that often sitting on our hands is the most prudent and just course of action?
We can support meaningful action in the Middle East, but leading action in the region has hurt our nation and made it weaker.
6
The claim that Israel needs the Golan heights for it's defense is absurd. Today's warfare does not consist of ox-drawn catapults, marching armies, or even tank fire. It consists of highly sophisticated cruise missiles, drones, supersonic bombers and precise locating and targeting electronics. The range of such weaponry is thousands of miles.
No. Israel simply wants to control water supplies. The deception is transparent.
19
@Greg
This is just not true. A measure of success in modern conventional is still strategic ground that is seized and held by a participated party.
That ground must then be defended by Infantry and Mechanized Armor. Just because the tools of War have evolved does not been the basics have.
17
Greg: you seem to be unaware that for decades, the Syrians and Palestinians used simple inexpensive mortars to bombard the upper Israel. The elevation of the disputed plateau greatly extended the range of those weapons.
Not a theoretical military threat but a frequent rain of death and destruction to the farmers below. My question then is, why did this fact of history not make it into the article? The bombardment did not stop until Israel captured the area.
10
@Greg
Wrong, dead wrong. Its ALWAYS boots on the ground. And as simple as that sounds, height advantage will never age out due to technological advances.
9
Oh! How I long to read an excellent lengthy NYT article without the large photographs hogging the pages during scrolling to reach the next block of text!
6
@STG Respectfully but firmly disagree.
I returned to several times, and enlarged, the photograph of the women and children at the playground in Keshet. I've pored over it I suppose several minutes for details. It's quite a photo.
I think I saw and, in a qualified way, learned a lot from it.
8
@STG I LOVE the NYT pictures. They are stunning examples of some of the best photo reporting in the world.
3
Foolish talk. It isn't the satraps who rule the Middle East and who align with Israel and the US we should worry about. It is the vast majority that, a la Algeria, will rise and start chopping the heads off their corrupt leaders.
This is another example of wishful thinking by those with complete ignorance of culture and history. The same folks that believe that might is right and who thought they could claim victory over an idea, whether its Al Qaeda or ISIS. And another example of the US doing the bidding of its master, Israel.
6
This statement from Trump has little to do with the state of the Golan Heights. It's entirely about getting his fellow corrupt politician (Netanyahu) re-elected.
27
The annexation of Golan Heights is straightforwardly a violation of international law and no different in principle from Russian annexation of chunks of Ukraine or Nazi German annexation of chunks of Poland. That's not only the position of the UN, but the entire democratic world, apart from the US. The silence of the Gulf states tells us nothing beyond the fact that their vicious regimes are wholly dependent on US political and military support. Turkey, the only independent nation apart from Iran in the region, is certainly not quiescent. And everywhere in the Islamic world Trump has confirmed what every Moslem has known since the 1968 Arab-Palestinian war, the US is no honest broker, no fair player in a middle-east peace process, but instead is committed to cynical pursuit of its own strategic advantage. And, of course, it is obvious to all that Trump intends his gesture to skew the Israeli election in favour of his friend, Netanyahu & the intransigent Israeli right. In short, the whole affair stinks.
19
@Cephalus
No different, either, from England's conquest of Canada at the expense of the indigenous people. Australia, too, and the USA itself. Oh, and Spain's conquest of Mexico and all of Latin America. And Portugal's conquest of Brazil. And so on... the only difference is that Israel took over the Golan Heights as a direct result of a defensive war, in which Israel's very existence was threatened by its Arab neighbors.
10
@Jonathan
Are you SERIOUSLY comparing the PURSUITS of the British EMPIRE and the Spanish reign with illegal land grabs of a country borne out of guilt for a crime (Holocaust) committed by Christian, white nationalists of Europe? Saddam attacking Kuwait or Crimea being usurped by Russia would be MORE a propos.
And this ‘NARRATIVE that Israel was under attack in the years leading up to the 1967 war has already been DEBUNKED by many Jewish writers including AVI SHLAIM in his book, titled The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.
And certainly hope you’ll not stoop to using ‘self-hating’ monikers for Mr. Shlaim that many reasonable, rational Jews are often accused of, should they dare criticize Zionism or the state of Israel, even when LEGITIMATELY warranted.
2
I like the NY Times. I consider myself a proud Liberal. HOWEVER, your "brief history of the Golan Heights" is indeed brief, and like the Liberal narrative of the Israel-Palestine conflict, it begins with the Six Day War and ignores everything that happened before. You begin your history of the Golan Heights with the Six Day War. You totally ignored the 19 years of Syrian shelling of the Jezreel Valley of Israel from those heights. You also ignored one of the reasons that prompted the Six Day War. The Syrians began to divert the water of the Hasbani and Banias Rivers to reduce the flow of water into the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee, thereby cutting off fresh water to Israel. The shelling and the diversion of the river are significant acts of war that your "brief history" totally omitted.
82
@Phil Kramer: Excellent take. Thanks Mr. Kramer for reminding readers--and those who don't want reality or historical perspective--to interfere with their anti-Israeli bias (or is it just outright anti-Semitism?).
12
@Phil Kramer
Israel violated the demilitarized zone of the Golan Heights too. They sent settlers into the area knowing it would provoke a Syrian response.
Israel is not the victim you make them out to be.
5
@Phil Kramer
But Israeli Generals have admitted that most of the shelling was deliberately provoked by Israel to try to justify seizure of the territory.
5
All right, let's get a few things clear about the Golan Heights. First of all, Israel returned the eastern third to Syria, and it was that third where the bulk of the population was.
Second, long before the Arab invasions, Israelites lived there. In fact, a synagogue built in the fifth century still stands albeit in ruin.
Third, the western two-thirds were sparsely population in the 1800s and early 1900s. It was during that time Jews began purchasing land—at least 100 sq miles. Mizrahi Jews fled to Golan, only to be evicted by the the Turks and harassed by Arabs.
Fourth, Israel offered the entirety of the Golan to Syria in 1967. The Arab states rejected the offer.
Fifth, 27,000 descendants of the pre-annexation population remained. All have been offered Israeli citizenship. Since the Syrian Civil War, thousands have finally accepted it. Druze in Israel enjoy a higher standard of living and more freedoms than their counterparts in Syria. Israeli politicians have, in the past, even called for the establishment of a Druze state in the Golan.
Since the Syrian Civil War, Israeli has has helped hundreds if not thousands of injured Syrians. This despite decades of Arab violence against Israelis in the Golan. Would Syria do the same? Doubtful.
One more thing. The Druze speak Arabic, but they're not Arabs. Nor are they a Muslim sect. They're a distinct, millennium-old, endogamous ethnoreligious group. Don't erase their identity.
57
@Mssr. Pleure How dare you actually know what you are talking about. You are ruining the pseudo-interlectual anti-Israel narrative, bro. Stop it. Next you might point out that there is no Palestinian Peace Partner or peace movement. Seriously dude, stop it!!
13
@Mssr. Pleure
> Second, long before the Arab invasions, Israelites lived there. In fact, a synagogue built in the fifth century still stands albeit in ruin
That has literally nothing to do with this. There were Canaanites on on that land before Israelites.
2
@Mssr. Pleure Except that now they have also removed occupuied territory from Gaza and WestBank. What do you expect, kill all the people and pretend nothing happened. If you want to learn about history then read Ilan Pappe - He is a Jewish historian who talks about ethnic cleansing!
"Another semantic change that appeared in last year's report showed up again this year, with a section titled "Israel, Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza," instead of its previous "Israel and the Occupied Territories" heading.
1
It’s remarkable that anyone would use Sadaam’s invasion of Kuwait as an analogy here.
Syria mounted multiple attempts at invading Israel with genocidal intent and have never renounced those intents.
Did Kuwait wage war in Iraq?
25
One has to only stand on the Golan Heights and look down into Israel to realize that Israel will never give this land back. And although I disagree with so much of what Netanyahu does, and almost all of what Trump does, this is a no-brainer. The US should recognize it as part of Israel and move on. No one will care at this point. To even think about giving the land back to Syria will invite another mid-east war.
48
@Michael Feeley
Well stated.
8
Two comments. First, anyone who has actually visited the Golan and seen the old Syrian bunkers that overlook the Sea of Galilee and the city of Tiberias would understand why the Israelis would never give it back to Syria, particularly to Syria as long as it is ruled by the Assad family of war criminals. Second, if the United States wants to coerce other countries into giving back land conquered by military force, we should start by giving Texas back to Mexico. What's good for the....
32
@Jeffrey Davis
Jeff,
You gave a bad example using Texas. Texans beat Mexico and became a sovereign nation..."The Republic of Texas".
The middle east borders were still changing in the mid 1900's. So this is different.
1
@Jeffrey Davis: The Mexican/American War ended with a treaty signed by both parties. Of course the cession of all that land in the west, and the recognition of the loss of Texas was forced on Mexico, but there was a signed treaty, and Mexico got some money out of the deal. Even in the case of all the land stolen from the Indians, there was usually some token document signed by supposed representatives of the Indians, with some supposed compensation, giving some appearance of legality. It sounds like in the case of the Golan Heights, Israel is simply unilaterally declaring their ownership, with no pretense of legal process.
1
@Kadius
Yes, "Texas" beat Mexico because the United States provided arms. And, the Texans mostly were not native Mexicans, but white Americans who moved there. And the reason they wanted independence and join the Union?: Slavery. Not really that different.
1
Palestiniens have been the main victims of the Arab lack of solidarity in that region. Those countries started the wars against Israel and palestiniens have paid the price .
As for the Golan territory, let’s look at a very simple comparaison, no international treaty has recognized Crimea has being part of Russia and Moscow has been hit with sanctions. North Korea and Iran have been developing nuclear energy to militarize it and they have both been hit with sanctions.
No international treaties have recognized the Golan heights or the West Bank has Israeli territories but no sanctions on Israel and Israel has developed nuclear technology to weaponize it and no sanctions have been imposed on Jerusalem.
We might all feel ok with this world order but it is impossible to sustain something that is in the eye of most countries unfair and continue to give to the extreme fringe of their population a reason to do what they do .
6
@Gwenael
But only Israel is a democracy so your comparisons are invalid. That land was seized when Israel was attacked.
5
So you argument is because you are a democracy you can do whatever you want , so the United States helping Pinochet remove Allende from office and making Chile a dictatorship was ok because the US is a democracy ?
I am sorry to say but that kind of argument and logic makes your response irrelevant.
1
One does ask, if one takes, and annexes, an area to create a military buffer between itself and its enemy, why would it build settlements in that buffer? Would that not be like, say, housing in the 38th/DMZ.......?
6
@DF
I have zero issue with it.
1
@DF nice application of actual logic. A buffer is suppressed to take the punishment, without civilians getting hurt. If you move civilians into the buffer, it's no longer a buffer.
1
We're in tyrannical spring around the world led by trump. Tyrannical states in the Gulf like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are looking to partner with Israel because they realize how alike they are - a pretend theocratic democracy with lots of wealth. Syria, an Iranian ally, is now a pariah to most other nations - and for good reason.
What has Israel done since its creation by the UN to claim and justify legitimate ownership of the Golan Heights, let alone the West Bank and even Israel proper?
The UN should create a nation state and safe haven for the Kurds in Golan. Legally that wouldn't be partitioning Israel, but the Israelis will fight back and call it unjust even though their own country was established by taking land away from those already there for centuries. At least the Kurds seem to be a more responsible people and would better fit with the international community.
Indeed, if Israel annexes the West Bank, the UN should invalidate the UN resolution that created Israel and replace it with one replacing Israel with a Kurdish homeland. See how Israelis like fair turnabout and how fast an Israeli Liberation Organization, like the PLO, emerges.
Trump fancies himself as a land grabber - practicing in the southern border by confiscating private land to building a wall, effectively giving American land south of the wall to Mexico. Trump also wants to keep the oil for himself, and is eying Venezuela - he could care less about the humanitarian crises.
International law?As if!
7
@PAN
The Golan is historically home to Druze; Kurds are not on record of having ancestral lands there.
I agree Kurds should be recognized and given safe haven in Turkey, northern Syria, Iran, and of course, north Iraq.
Though the Turks employed the Kurds to do some of the dirty work in the Armenian genocide, they are still a noble people who deserve cultural autonomy at least.
The Kurds have been trying to do some "land grabbing" themselves, but the Turks are too formidable an enemy. they have ethnically cleansed areas of eastern Turkey, but not as horribly as what Saddam Hussein did in the 1980's.
1
Why would the Kurds want to give up their ancestral lands to move to Golan? It sounds like you are proposing creating a "reservation for the natives" we know how well that's worked here in the US. What about the native Druze that still live there and have been offered Israeli citizenship?
1
@Chuck
I agree with you completely @Chuck. The Druze do deserve to get their land back and seem to be a responsible group that if not under Syrian dictatorship rule should be given back their lands.
Israel keeps expanding and taking territory through force and land giveaway edicts from individual-1.
The Kurds came to mind as stateless and real allies of the US fighting along side US military, unlike Israel which is a unidirectional ally that takes, takes, takes giving little in return and yet continues to spy on the hand that feeds and protects it, regardless of the atrocities it commits.
Hasn't the whole world been divided by "land grabs" since the beginning of time. look a map of the world from the 17th century and it is barely recognizable except for the shape of the continents. which standard are we supposed to revert back to,1667 or 1967? There will always be a former "owner" no matter how far back you go. There is no right or wrong...only politics.
8
@Jerry
But there IS international law and there IS the Fourth Geneva Convention. This is NOT politics, this is a rules-based society.
6
@Greg
It would be nice if we lived by rules all nation / states agreed to follow.
Maybe in another 50 - 100 years, if civilization is still intact, we will get there.
It will be easier to make peace by redistributing land so everyone can live free.
@Jerry: There are always former owners, but there are practically always legal transfers of ownership, purchases or treaties on record that explain the changed borders. I think the cases of simple seizure by force, without even the pretense of legal transfer, are the historical exceptions, although of course some of them involved very large territories.
1
There are good reasons why the world has been less upset about the Golan and Mr Hubbard, typically, glosses over one of them in his article. Here is the false equivalency that reveals the confusion:
"But Mr. Trump’s recognition of the seizure of one state’s land by another could make it harder for the United States to push back when strongmen carry out land grabs."
Can we not distinguish between a situation where a country was attacked (1967, then 1973), and prior to that was subject to a neighbor using a high plateau to lob missiles into its territory, and, say, the unprovoked Iraqi land grab in Kuwait?
In fact there are many places in the world where current borders are the result of previous wars (hey, there USA) and the world is not protesting. I can't imagine why Israel or any country should or would contemplate handing the entire Golan back to an aggressor next door.
23
@Robert MD
The bad guys will always say they were "provoked" into defending themselves and taking territory. Russia was allegedly protecting the Russian in Ukraine who were going to be attacked by the fascists who took over the government.
5
@Joe 7 countries attempting to destroy and kill...you call provocation? And you call the VICTIM country the BAD guys! WHEW!
3
Now we have Pompeo saying that "God sent Trump to help the Jews".
I agree with Kellyanne Conway's husband that Trump has a sick mind but now it's starting to look like everybody in this administration is of a sick mind.
I hope God sends somebody to help America from these idiots.
11
If, after he occupied Czechoslovakia and included it in the Third Reich, Hitler, to satisfy some local party bosses, named some German city to belong now to this Czech area of Germany - what should happen after the end of WWII when that German city wants to return to Germany?
Khrushchev, USSR, Ukraine, Crimea.
YOU see a comparison?
The shifting sands do not stop shifting, and generally shift back, returning again and again to a reality somehow favored by the geography itself.
The militarization of this region just won't stop. The sense of hostility was subdued in Ottoman times, and was quiescent until ... until what? Not anymore. Why?
2
Israel has enough rockets raining down on it without inviting more by returning the Golan Heights.
42
It is a scrap of sand. Almost, who cares? Someone probably showed Trump a map of it and he didn't see what the fuss was about.
This patch of desert is supposed to keep Israel safe? Give me a break. Israel should build a wall on their own side of the sand. Maybe Mexico would pay for it.
3
@Nadia Clearly, you don't know this area's geography. The Golan is not a flat desert. This is a mountainous area (thus the "Heights" part) that is heavily forested and has commanding views of Lebanon, Syria and Israel. Syria used it to shell Israeli farms and snipe farmers from 1948 to 1967. The Six Day War changed all that. It's been almost entirely quiet ever since. That would not have been the case if it fell to ISIS during the Syrian Civil War.
15
Arab snipers on the Gilad Heights targeted Israeli farmers below, so yes, Israeli control of this little piece of land keeps Israel safe. Saving one life is as though you’ve saved the whole world.
6
@Nadia
Yes, Trump is only concerned with strips of sand he can build a resort on. When he saw the beaches in North Korea, he was suddenly a fan of Kim.
1
After the 1948–49 Arab-Israeli War, the Golan Heights were partly demilitarized by the Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement. During the following years, the area along the border witnessed thousands of violent incidents; the armistice agreement was violated repeatedly.
After the Six-Day War broke out in June 1967, after Egypt again closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, Israel launched what it called a pre-emptive attack, annihilating Egypt's air forces. Egypt, Jordan, and Syria then attacked Israel. Syria's shelling from the strategically significant Golan Heights greatly intensified until the Israeli army captured the Golan Heights on 9–10 June.
The Israeli's captured the Golan Heights and maintained their presence there to deter its enemies from using it to attack them. Short answer, it now belongs to Israel. To the victor go the spoils.
42
It seems that the sectarian faultlines laid bare by the Saudi Arabia-Iran rivalry for regional dominance have also set in motion the process of redrawing the post-war political landscape of West Asia with external powers playing the supportive role where it suits them. The resulting consequences still remain hidden in the womb of the future.
4
You invade a country and you lose .... you might just lose some territory in the bargain. How could Israel give back such a strategic territory. There are consequences to actions. Putin invading the Ukraine would not analogous, unless the Ukraine invaded Russian first.
32
Except Israel was the one that attacked Egypt and Syria to start the war. They were never invaded.
1
"now peace doesn’t matter, Syria doesn’t matter and maybe Syria doesn’t exist"
That is the one thing that the insurgency in Syria has actually won for anybody. Cui bono?
5
Golan Heights, U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, West Bank, etc are all yesterday's news. Arab countries have moved on, U.S. shale oil industry has revolutionized the energy market, Iran rather Israel is the " bad guy " in the Arab world.
13
The Arab country's response is muted because they know that they, and the West, are headed toward a larger war that will decide the Golan Height's true fate. Israel and the United States are pushing a right wing agenda that is quickly leading us into a war in Syria with Iran and Russia. We have abandoned nuclear agreements with both of our adversaries leaving them open to develop short range nuclear weapons at will. The hawks have carried the day. Our President is a dolt and his son-in-law is running our foreign policy in the Mideast. Bolton and his cadre will push us into a win/lose proposition where the only winners will be the dogs of war. That wag the dog should give Trump a second term, but will leave a lot of Americans and Israeli soldiers dead or wounded.
6
@Patrick Stevens if Trump wins and Dems die it is a pretty good bargain. America can return to its traditional values.
Trump and Nethanayu are doing what dictators are doing best.
They steal, if it is not money it is land.
They believe that they strengthen their power by stealing. Nethanayu already being investigated for multiple crimes, mostly stealing, now wants to use Golan Heights to rescue his presidency.
Trump, not that long ago, said that of course the US has to get involved in Velenzuela as gold (oil) can be found everywhere and that should belong to the US.
Both leaders have learned from the best, Mr. Putin, you never steal from the rich, you steal from the poor.
7
One issue not mentioned here is water. The Sea of Galilee is Israel's biggest source of fresh water.
I believe that as climate change continues to reshape our world and the population of Israel grows, access to fresh water will become an even more vital concern for Israel.
7
@T SB. Israels water status is 100% self-sufficient. The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) is not on the Golan.
1
@0326 Thanks, my mistake. The Golan Heights contains water sources that lead to the Sea of Galilee, but not the lake itself.
I'll recheck my sources re: the water issue.
@T SB while @0326 was correct about the Kinneret not being in the Golan, water was and still remains a key issue regarding the conflict.
Israel stopped using the Kinneret as a water source only in past couple of years as enough desalination plants were built to make up for not using the lake's water, it still remains a vital source of water for the country and for a backup for any case where those cease to operate.
Second point is, though the Kinneret is technically part of the the Golan, it is located right below the heights and therefore can easily be dominated by whoever controls them.
Third, as you mentioned, the rivers feeding the lake all come from the Golan and diverting them could significantly hurt the water supply for the lake.
To conclude, though during the 1967 war when the Golan was taken water was much a greater issue than it is today - it doesn't make it negligible today.
1
I fear something much bigger on the horizon, i.e. Iran and Israel.
2
@Hunt. As an Israeli who fought the Syrians on the Golan, I share your fear. Iran's forces greatly outnumber Israel's and they have thousands of their terrorist cadres to the south and north of Israel with tens of thousands of rockets. I fear that Israel may have to go nuclear in order to survive.....and there won't be any putting that genie back in the bottle.
25
@0326
> Iran's forces greatly outnumber Israel's
Israel possesses the finest military hardware American taxpayers give them for free. Israel possesses nuclear weapons that ensure they will never be conquered. The threat from terrorist missiles is highly overstated.
4
The Golan Heights were not some land grab by the Israelis. They sacrificed many soldiers to reach that plateau. Why? Because the Syrians used their geographic advantage to rain down missiles on helpless Israeli villages and towns. Until 1967 Israel had not been able to put a stop to the death and terror visited upon its citizens by the dictator in Syria.
Before we criticize Israel about the Golan Heights we should remember that the leader of Syria educated his people every Passover that the Jews murdered Christian children every year and used their blood to make matzah.
The Syrian dictator has killed more than 600,000 innocent men, women, and children. He used his warplanes to turn his cities into rubble and has repeatedly used chemical weapons against his own people. More than 7,000,000 Syrians have fled the onslaught Assad's forces have unleashed and it is Assad who is responsible for the refugee crisis spilling onto Europe's borders and causing the governments of Austria, Poland, and Hungary to take a sharp right turn, and is largely responsible for the debacle of Brexit, and for the most unifying leader in Europe, Angela Merkel, to no longer run for office because of the backlash she received for welcoming over a million refugees.
There's plenty of things to criticize Israel about from its treatment of the Palestinians to the disgraceful Trump-like Prime Minister who makes American Jews like myself ashamed to continue to support Israel, but Syria is not one of them.
22
“He who doesn’t throw his heart into it, may God break his legs,” Mr. Hanna wrote.
What planet do these people come from who routinely call upon God to cause pain and suffering?
5
@Charlie
Its sarcasm Charlie.
I suppose the question now is, What will Israel do when and if the Sunni-Shia schism with all its complexity is ever resolved? I hope the answer won't be Dimona.
4
@crowdancer
The Sunni Shia schism will never be resolved.
1
@PCh
Though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve.
The word 'never,' I suppose, is the operative term here.
1
who cares...syria is a fake concoction created by some french and british guys a hundred years ago without any attention paid to the history of the region. how do we know? the current civil war shows as much.
but anyway, the israelis took the golan in '67 and thereafter, didn't bomb or murder its residents...something that assad can't claim.
i'd suggest that if the golan were now syrian, those residents would be wishing for a return of the days of israeli "rule"
26
It goes without saying that Donald Trump is a horrible president but one thing that he is good at is recognizing that past presidents were overly concerned to the point of paralysis about possible adverse International reaction if the US supported Israel regarding lands that were taken by Israel in 1967 after Israel’s enemies massed their armies for an attack against the Jewish state. The reality is that past US presidents knew full well that Israel had a moral right to keep the Golan Heights and that it would’ve been the height of folly for Israel to give that area up,but simply were too chicken to say so.
13
Well, is it indifference ( "the shift was met across much of the Arab world with a shrug.") as this article suggest? Or is it anger at the US via #45 for favoring Israel, again, as reported in today Washington Post? Turkey and Russia also joined the Arab world to protest again this new land grab attempt. It's rather strange that two highly respected newspapers, both leaning on the same side politically, would report opposed views on this conflicted area. Are these facts or opinions? The NYT piece- apart from quoting the pro-Israel Syrian rebels- sure reads like good propaganda.
4
Golan Heights will always be part of Syria/Arab world no matter how Israel tries to steal it. Cheats & thugs will never prosper.
8
@Shane Take that up with the Assad family, current thugs and cheats of the Syrian regime since 1970.
11
Exactly why the Arab world is in the situation it’s in...
3
Who in their right mind would give this defensive, strategic piece of land back to a country it defeated in war? This is also a country that has ISIS within it's borders. This is an instance where Israel cannot give in to international peer pressure.
46
@Rob Someone who realized that winning a peace is more important than winning a war and that peace will not be won thru annexation.
Note that Israel won the war even though Syria controlled the Golan Heights so it's not utterly crucial.
The smart move would be to be willing to trade it for a true peace deal. Yes such a deal has been quite elusive. But right now, with Syria so weakened, might be exactly the right time to seek a deal. A deal that included demilitarization of the Golan, an international force stationed there and other aspects to assuage Israeli concerns.
Netanyahu ain't interested in peace. He's not thinking long-term.
5
An international force like the one in Lebanon that allowed Hezbollah to rearm and build attack tunnels under the internationally recognized border into Israel? Please...an international force is a farce.
10
@Jack Toner
Trade it for a peace deal with whom? Syria is at war with itself.
8
Just because Trump recognizes Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights does not mean the issues surrounding the annexation go away. These disputed areas have a way of popping up and frustrating peace negotiations well into the future. See Kashmir, East Timor, and many, many more.
6
@Liz Ramos
Good Point! Bolivia is suing Chile in the hopes of gaining a Pacific port it lost in the War of the Pacific back in the late 1800's.
In The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, by Avi Schlaim, the author shows how Israel provoked the ‘67 war by deliberate acts of aggression, many of which were performed in the Golan Heights. Contrary to popular belief, the book argues, Israel knew it would prevail in 1967, and provoked the war in order to seize the territories.
The narrative that Israel was the victim of aggression by a gang of larger countries is therefore cast in doubt, and with it, the justification for the seizure of the territory.
Nevertheless, the seizure of land by more powerful groups of people has been a reality since the dawn of man. There is little the international community can do to intervene, especially if the seizure is backed by the United States. What we can and must do, is stop pretending to justify it by various false narratives.
Also, despite the truth of Israel’s provocation, it is a matter of fact that the Arab people and nations have been belligerent toward the Jewish State even as they make overtures for peace. If they ever organized their powers in effective ways, which due to their own corruption they have been unable to do as yet, Israel’s existence would be in dire jeopardy. Israel took the Golan Heights (and West Bank) for its security, and will never give it back. The Arab world will unfortunately have to accept this as a fact of life.
7
@Mr. Little And don't forget that they deliberately attacked the USS Liberty, killing thirty-four american sailors. We have never held them accountable! Another example of AIPAC's political power?
6
@Jack Toner
Should Iran be allowed to hold the US 'accountable' because the US shot down an Iranian airliner full of civilians. It was a tragic accident as was the Liberty debacle.
I thought the Golan Heights was necessary for the Israelis to control because it is a strategic "military zone." If that's really the case, then wouldn't encouraging 30+ settlements and over 25,000 Israelis to live there amount to using civilians as human shields?
18
@Allison
You are misinterpreting the meaning of "military zone." Indeed, it is a zone of military importance only because it provides an elevated platform from which Syria -- or whoever controls it -- could (and did) rain down artillery fire on Israel.
The settlements establish that the Israeli presence is permanent. Not to the detriment of the residents who were in the Golan prior to Israel's taking it; they were offered Israeli citizenship -- and, as they are witnessing, a much higher standard of living than they experienced previously.
19
@Allison Yes Allison, yes it would.
5
@Allison -- If it was so key, then why was it offered in the last actual talks? The only sticking point was control of the water Israel meant to continue taking out of the Golan.
8
Why is the US getting so excited over Russia's re-occupation of Crimea?
12
I think the world agrees that the region is more stable with Israel in control of the strategic asset than Syria. Can anyone imagine what would have happened if ISIS, or another group, had seized control of the Golan during this brutal civil war?
This is a case where Israel's occupation saved countless lives on both sides of the boarder, all without firing a shot.
36
@Neil -- "I think the world agrees that the region is more stable with Israel in control"
Only when "stable" is defined as Israel remaining in uncontested control of everything it has ever tried to take.
9
@Mark Thomason
If Israel was interested in land grabs and not peace, residents of Port Said would speak Hebrew, not Arabic.
4
A land grab is a land grab. When you take land by force of arms, you are grabbing land. It only reinforces the Injustice when the victim is too weak to take it back.
The United States has been against this explicitly for most of its history. We demonstrated that principle after the Spanish-American war. After WW I we set an example for most colonial powers which they unfortunately did not take. FDR tried after WW II to create a world order which was committed to self-determination.
Yes we have failed at times, but our finest hour has been when we acted unselfishly on behalf of democracy.
Justice is the first casualty in this latest Trump "peace" policy.
That is the lesson to be learned here. Either we stand for Justice and Peace or we foment eventual war and betray our principles in the process.
80
@Brian Barrett The United States has been against so-called land grabs for most of its history? How do you think the US came into being? You do realize the entire country was populated, right? The Supreme Court just decided a case about Indian treaties: how do you think those treaties came to be? How could the US "purchase" half the country from France absent a land grab? Then somehow ended up with another half from Mexico - land grab. The US also purchased Alaska from Russian, never mind the people living there - another land grab. Don't even get started on Hawaii, a really beautiful land grab. Clear out the anti-Israel fog, that seems to destroy reason and logic about land grabs and realize that there's still a US military base on Cuba. The notion that the US is "explicitly" or even implicitly or remotely against land grabs is absurd: the entire country is a land grab.
As for the Golan Heights that was gifted (by France, like the middle of the US) to Syria. It was "Syrian" for something like 26 years and it's been Israeli for about double that. There are no settlements there any more than a new suburb in Florida, land grabbed from the Seminole Tribe, is a "settlement."
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@Brian Barrett Had America seen the project through rather than opting for isolationism in the 1920s, the impact on European colonialists might have been more pronounced.
@Brian Barrett I'm sure that the Native Americans are wondering when their land will be returned.
We have always lived in an imperfect world, with many country's boundaries determined through conflict or colonial rule. In this particular instance your proposition would enable Syria a 1700 foot elevation advantage for bombardment of Israel, or even worse the Iranians a good platform for their goal of totally destroying Israel.
I'm old, and no longer an idealist. I choose the more pragmatic course of an Israeli Golan and peace, rather than any alternative which inevitably would lead to war.
29
The sad issue here is that it is the undemocratic heads of the various states that do not or cannot respond. The Arab "Man in the Street" is all for rejecting Israels military conquests and occupations. But they only have fragile civilian bodies vs. the US backed Israeli war machine.
If this was India vs. Pakistan, with more balanced military power, there'd be a full scale war breaking out in minutes after such an outrageous announcement.
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@Tony Reardon Did you miss the entire Iraq war?
There might not be a lot of effective armed forces in the region (Hezbollah possibly being the exception), but insurgencies take a lot more to defeat than a conventional army. Notice how the troop surge was necessary to quell fierce fighting in Anbar province, and as soon as the war was over and the troops went home what happened? Anbar became ISIS territory.
You can win a war against an army, but you can't win a war against a people; it just never ends.
Also, I think India is less excited about the idea of a war in Kashmir than you think. Their army is in no state to be starting a war, and if they really wanted to push ahead they might have retaliated with more than a few failed airstrikes after the recent Jaish-e-Mohammed attack.
2
Russia annexes the Crimean Peninsula after the Crimean people vote for such annexation in a referendum, There was no war. The US imposes sanctions on Russia.
Israel annexes the Golan Heights as a result of the 1967 war. I do not recall the Syrian in the Golan voting for the annexation. The US does not impose sanctions on Israel. Instead, it hypocritically recognizes the annexation.
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@Greg the comparison of Crimea to the Golan Heights is weak at best. There is no equivalency here.
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@Keith Wagner
Sure there is. They both violate the UN proscription on taking territory by force.
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@Greg
The Crimean "referendum" was a farce, created by the Russian occupiers. That is well known.
The Arab world recognizes by its indifference to its status that the Golan is now Israel. So do we.
17
I'm one to criticize Israel on Gaza and the relationship to the Palestinians. On this issue - not so much. At some point in the future, maybe this land could be negotiated back to Syria, but any military strategist would agree that the Heights provide a significant strategic advantage in preventing Syrian attacks (as well as other bad actors' attacks through the Golan Heights). This move is EXACTLY what Israel should do to protect itself. The irony is that Israel's problems in Gaza gives the world pause in accepting what is a very reasonable move by the US and Israeli itself. And Trump being the person providing the muscle does nothing for one's confidence that its a good move. But it is.
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@T Mack You know in this century Israel has attacked Syrian territory a lot more times than Syria has attacked Israel. I'm not taking sides, I'm just saying.
I mean, Syria barely has an armed forces left to attack with.
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@T Mack They already control it so why is it necessary to annex it? You talk about it being negotiated back to Syria. Annexation makes that much less likely.
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@T Mack
You may be right but in this sound-bite world where Israel has a reputation for land-grabbing this move feeds that rhetoric. Of course it was done for political purposes to bolster Netanyahu, but it reflects a kind of brute and unsophisticated kind of diplomacy, a la Trump, that creates fights where little or none had existed.
3
There were Jews in the Golan thousands of years ago. Archeological digs have proven this. Also, if the Golan were Syrian hands at the time of the Syrian Civil War, the results would have been disastrous. Israel surely would have been attacked and would have retaliated, most likely coming face to face with Iranian and/or Russian forces. Instead, the Golan is where Israel saved many Syrian lives of wounded civilians and soldiers who approached the border seeing medical attention, no questions asked on what side they were on.
The Golan belongs to Israel. The world is better for it.
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@rockfanNYC
The world you refer to wants to see the enforcement of international law and the return of the Golan to the state of Syria.
10
@Greg The world I refer to would also have not lifted a finger if Israel were defeated in 1967 and Arab armies started massacring Israelis, as Arab leaders were publicly boasting in the weeks up to the Six Day War.
Too bad the state of Syria never offered nor accepted peace.
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@rockfanNYC You say Israel would have been attacked and retaliated, but the Druze in Golan would probably have been similar to the Druze in the rest of Syria: more concerned with keeping Islamist groups out of their territory than worrying about Israel.
Meanwhile, just last February Israel carried out its most intensive air campaign against Syria since 1982 in response to an Iranian drone. So suffice to say Israel hasn't been sitting on its hands.
So basically, nothing would have been different. There would have been a potential area for launching mortars, but in this era of military-hardware I wouldn't think they'd get many of those shells off before the airstrike or drone arrives and puts an end to it.
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I've appreciated much of Mr. Ibish has had to say over the past years. In response to his question, my answer would be, "On the basis of, don't start wars of aggression against your neighbors."
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Isn't the principle of "strongman land grabs" a bit different when you are seizing land from a defeated aggressor? Syria was part of a coalition that attacked Israel in 1967, and used this strategic land to effect that attack. Taking that strategic land after defeating an attacker and making a concerted effort to integrate the population seems to be on less rocky moral ground than, say, Russia taking Crimea or Iraq taking Kuwait.
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@GOB
First, Israel made the pre-emptive attack on the "coalition", it conducted the first aggression.
Second, regardless of who attacked first, Israel has no legal rights to Syrian territory.
Third, Russia annexed the Crimea, after the Crimean people held a referendum. There was no war.
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@Greg Crimea seems more like Hitler taking Czechoslovakia than the history of the Golan Heights and Israel.
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@Greg according to the international law, blockade of the Akaba strait was an act of war, so Israël did not carry out the first agression in the 1967 war.
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Can it really be called a "land grab" when a nation enters conflict for "cases belli," as was the closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping? The Arab self-defense treaty called for the Syrian and Jordanian the military to enter the Israeli-Egyptian conflict. With the original cause and conflict in the Egypt, it is an unreasonable stretch to believe that the intent of the 1967 war was Israeli territorial expansion to the North.
The Israeli annexation of the Golan was done in defense of the farms of the Galilee, which had long suffered routine shelling from the 1700 foot platform of the heights during "peacetime".
The years of unprovoked Syrian bombardment of the farms of Galilee at a time of theoretical "peace" necessitated Israel's control in 1967. There is no reason to conclude that situation would be changed by return to Syrian control today.
The more recent downward spiral of Syria's internal conflicts involving multiple foreign armies would be calamitous if the Golan was still in Syrian hands.
International order and international law do not preclude a nation's right to self-defense. I do not recall The Republic of Georgia, or Crimea threatening or invading Russia before, what is generally considered Russian "land grabs." There is an obvious false equivalence to these situations.
Sometimes codified international law and international order need to be pragmatically seconded to international peace. Perhaps it is the codification that needs amendment.
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@Phil Zaleon
This is the only response critics of Israeli occupation of Golan need to read.
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This move by the Trump Administration is simply a prelude to what comes next; the Trump-Kusher-Netanyahu-MBS team's "Deal of the Century" which will try to put all of the West Bank (including several Palestinian bantoustans) under Israeli control.
It is time for the world community to make a strong re-commitment to international law. If we do not abide by international law and strive for international standards of human rights, then the entire world is lost.
13
@Greg Maybe it's time the Palestinians started acting like a country and caring for it's citizens instead of a terrorist stronghold starving it's people of needed funds and humanitarian aid.
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@Steven Gordon
I agree the Palestinians need to shape up. It needs better control of its factions and armed militias.
But Israel has done far worse. According to the definition of "terrorism" the State of Israel (the government, not its factions) has engaged in terrorism that dwarfs that committed by the independent Palestinian factions and Palestinian individuals..
3
The writer is absolutely correct that Arab countries are now more interested in teaming with Israel against Iran.This is a new chapter in the ancient feud between the Sunnis and the Shias .Whoever imagined that the war in Syria,which started in 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring,would contribute so drastically to the politics in the Middle East !
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@Khaganadh Sommu -- Is that a permanent shift, or just a passing phase?
It might be as lasting as the alliance of the US and the Soviets against Germany. Resolve Germany, and they were at each others' throats at once.
1
The main thing that caused me to look at this article was the subtitle that stated that the Gulf states want to partner with Israel against Iran.
I would love to read an article thoroughly focused on the dimensions of such partnering (diplomatic recognition, trading relationships, actual mutual benefit treaties, etc).
Especially in regard to contiguous states (Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan).
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@Stephen Rinsler -- Israel is moving further away from the contiguous states. They move closer only to those who seek to use the US against Iran.
5
If it has a ski resort it must have snow, and if it has snow it must have water. Here in California, we know the value of mountains that accumulate snow in the winter and release its water during the dry summer.
10
We should also recognize Russian
sovereignty over Crimea. Same
principle applies to Crimea as to
golan heights. Legitimacy of ownership
of the land by military aggression is
now a new normal. One would expect
it from ethically challenged president.
It will make for a chaotic world.
8
@s.khan
You have it very wrong. The comparisons you make are amateurish. Israel was attacked by Syria many times. Israel fought back and won. Russia attacked Crimea and holds Crimea. Crimea lost and now the aggressor holds that area.
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@John In the case of the Six-Day War, Israel actually attacked first...
2
@Allison
Because they were within hours of being attacked by the Arabs and Egyptians. The Americans are very good at intercepting communications as they did in 1967. In fact, the US spy boat off the coast of South Sinai at that time, was sunk by the Israelis because the intercepts were being picked up by the Soviets, who were passing that information on to the Egyptians.
1
Yes. The greatest hysteria over the Golan these days seems to be from Israel-deranged so-called progressives and Leftists, along with Iran which vows to destroy Israel and would like nothing better to have its Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah proxies on the heights courtesy of a cowed Assad regime leaving Israel's farming communities below to regular attack and artillery shelling as they were before Israel took the heights in the 1967 war. Not so much anymore the Arab states interestingly.
If the Israel-deranged in this blog are so concerned about a country return territory it won in war from a country that started the war and tried to destroy it, your energies would be better spent demanding Poland immediately return Silesia and Galicia to Germany which Poland took after World War II.
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@JW Syria categorically did not start the Six Day War. The first engagement in that war was an Israeli airstrike against Egyptian tank units, so how could Syria be the aggressor?
Syria, formerly part of the United Arab Republic with Egypt, had a defensive alliance with Cairo. Once Egypt was attacked, Syria was technically obliged to enter in defence of its ally anyway.
How can so many people not know this. The only way you can say Egypt started the war (and that's still Egypt, whose Sinai territory was returned, not Syria) by closing the Straits of Tiran, but that's a reach
For the sake of the people living there, it is probably better that they continue to live under Israeli administration than be returned to the government of a failed state, but Israel has no right to the Golan Heights under international law.
2
@JW
Or China would return Tibet? Or Chile return part of Bolivia? The list goes on...
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@PCh
Lets not forget, Americans waged a 300 year war against all the Native American tribes. Total victory occurred around 1900, when the last 3 Indian chiefs were released from federal prison.
2
Are you seriously comparing Hussein's grab at Kuwait and Israel's annexation of the Golan? One was a strongman grabbing oil, the other was taking a defensive measure. Hussein invaded Kuwait, 1967 (and all other major wars) was a defensive war. From the Golan you can shell the Galilee and more importantly (and completely ignored here), control the Sea of Galilee, the only freshwater lake in Israel and a vital resource.
Israel helps wounded Syrians and refugees across the border. Can you imagine what the Golan would look like if Assad held it today? Israel brought peace to that region.
As to "comparing" it with Sinai, the Egyptians got it back for a good faith peace deal. The Assad regime demanded the Golan as a pre-requisite for STARTING negotiations. Basically, they said "let me place my boot on your neck, then we can talk."
Syria can't even control its own country without bombing it. They don't deserve a country, much less the Golan.
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@NS Iraq had no need for Kuwait's oil. The dispute was related to Kuwait undermining the price of oil, which was putting the Iraqi economy at risk.
If you consider that against Israel's stated reason for starting the Six Day War with its attack on Egypt, which was the closure of the Strait of Tiran (again, an economic factor) you could actually consider that Iraq was more aggrieved by Kuwait than Israel had been by Egypt.
@Mark Speaking of economic reasons, prior to '67, Syria used its position in the Golan to divert water from sources ending in the Sea of Galilee, at the time virtually Israel's only reliable water supply. That's a death threat.
Also, Egypt had moved 100,000 or so soldiers to the border. War was forthcoming, taking the first shot didn't cause the war but rather ensured that it would be won.
8
"today, the Gulf countries are more interested in partnering with Israel against Iran than in standing up for abstract notions of Arab dignity"
Mr. Hubbard you seem to ignore 2 important factors: International Law and the tenets of the Muslim religion.
Under international law Israel has absolutely no right to the lands of Syria. The Golan is not "disputed territory". It is land that under the law belongs to the sovereign state of Syria.
One of the basic principles of the Muslim religion is the fight against injustice. There may a few Arabs in Saudi Arabia who might abandon this tenet enrich themselves, but billions of Arabs and other Muslims world wide will not.
12
The notion that the Golan is a land grab is specious at best. Syria attacked Israel in 1967. Israel fought back and captured the land. International law gives the spoils to the winners not the losers. Syria gambled and lost. Israel never invaded a peaceful country and took the land. It was attacked and fought back. This is not Kuwait or Crimea. Sorry history supports Israel in keeping the land.
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@Greg
You are wrong about international law. If you were correct, then the victim--Israel-- of a war of aggression by Syria would have to return land to the aggressor. Did Poland return Gdansk to Germany? Gdansk used to be the German city of Danzig. Did Poland return Prussia to Germany? Did the Czechoslovakia return the Sudetenland to Germany? Was Austria re-united with Germany after the war? In each case the victim of aggression kept the land from the defeated aggressor.
8
@MPs
International law does not give land to the winners. It expressly forbids the acquisition of territory by force
5
We need to start another Trump list--we already have the number of lies he tells, now we need the number of diversions he throws up to avoid is daily political missteps. Trump couldn't find the Golan Heights on a map--but, sitting down with Jared, probably said, I need something this week, that John McCain routine did not go well, that GM plant closing, Mueller---come on Jared, got anything....
4
@Amanda Jones Trump's strategy works, though. He says something incendiary on Twitter, then the next day he does the same only on a different subject. You have so little time to feel outraged by any individual issue that he gets away with it.
During Clinton's Presidency, Barack offered 90% of everything that PLO asked for - Arafat walked away from it. That to me was the end of all negotiations. Golan Heights, indeed, look spectacular except for the pock mark tank in the foreground. You could have cropped it, now that it has become part of Israel?
18
This is another legacy of Barack Obama's foreign policy in which he abandoned traditional allies in the Middle East and sided with their enemies against their vehement objection. Trump reordered that legacy and as a result Arab allies won't do anything to displease Trump. That is the reason why when President Trump called for moving American embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, the shifts were met across much of the Arab world with a shrug.
22
@Alex E Trump is abandoning his traditional allies everywhere else.
Even Britain is tired of Trump's America. And that's a country that followed Bush Jr to Afghanistan and Iraq without hesitation.
Arab allies do things all the time that make life difficult for Trump, but he does nothing. He's all talk and he'll end up achieving very little. The most powerful leader in the world couldn't even leverage North Korea into an agreement when its people are starving.
Turkey (not Arab, I'll grant you) basically manipulated Trump into removing the US troops from Syria. Even Erdogan was surprised when Trump said yes to that one.
Iraq continues to forge closer ties, through paramilitaries and economic partnerships, to Iran in spite of America's objections.
MbS is carrying out hits and waging an unpopular war on Yemen, and Saudi Arabia still sponsors untold numbers of terror groups in the Middle East, yet there is no action against Riyadh.
Other than his favourable treatment of Israel, Trump has done nothing that Arab/Muslim states in the region would object to. And even if we talk about moving the embassy to Jerusalem, Egypt and Saudi, Jordan and Syria, they don't care about that. Palestinians care, but the governments of other countries could solve the Palestinian refugee problem overnight if they cared at all about those people.
@Mark Trump did not abandon any allies, he only asked their fair share to defend them. Of course they don't like that, too baad!
2
As stated in the article, Syria used the Golan Heights to its military strategic advantage to shell the Galilee, an undisputed part of Israel.
However, the article has not provided a single example of offensive military advantage for the Israelis.
If anything, refugees from Lebanon were aided in their UN sanctioned escape to Jordon by Israel through the Golan Heights, as well as hundreds of injured Syrians seeking medical aid in Israel.
Historically, there is significant evidence of Jewish existence in the Golan prior to the arrival of Syria.
84
@Dr. Sam Rosenblum Historically, there were Jews in Egypt before it was modern day Egypt, but Israel can't claim Cairo.
Historically, there were Jews in Ethiopia before that became a country. But again, you can't make Addis Ababa part of Israel.
There's no logic to the argument. I mean, there were fire-worshippers in the region before Abraham arrived, does that mean that we should be looking to give the whole Middle East to their descendants?
6
@Dr. Sam Rosenblum
The Golan Heights it on top of Ancient Greek (Alexander the Great settles the region) and Roman ruins. Shall we give it back to Greece?
1
Not sure why words like ‘occupied’ are used to describe Israel’s legitimate gains in a war they won but did not start.
216
@Sarah
First of all Israel DID start the war. They attacked first, claiming prevention.
Second it IS legally "occupied territory". Under international law there is no such thing as "legitimate gains in a war".
34
@Sarah, Russia is sanctioned
for legitimate control of Crimea.
What hypocricy?
20
@Sarah I believe "gains in a war" that you keep indefinitely is pretty much the definition of "occupied". It doesn't matter who started it. But please, let's just keep playing games with language, until there's nothing left.
9
"Today, the Gulf countries are more interested in partnering with Israel against Iran than in standing up for abstract notions of Arab dignity," This is probably a good thing. The Golan Heights is really of strategic interest to Syria only if it's strategy includes shelling Israeli towns below. Otherwise, Syria has other concerns that far outweigh this one.
"Dignity" is not a very solid principle for building borders and peace. Practical and humanitarian concerns are better starting points.
45
@SJG -- "The Golan Heights is really of strategic interest to Syria only if it's strategy includes shelling Israeli towns below."
It goes two ways. From the Golan, one can see the edges of Damascus, and dominate the heartland of Syria. There is every reason for Syria to be concerned about that.
7
@Mark Thomason
Let Syria be concerned.They've not initiated confrontations with Israel in a long time. Perhaps they know that Israel will react hard to any confrontation that Syria starts!
3
@Mark Thomason
"Every reason?" I'm not sure there's any reason for Syria to be concerned about that. Israel has controlled the Golan for a half century. They have monitored Syria closely (along with UN peacekeepers) but there haven't been any attempts to invade, terrorize or dominate the Syrian heartland.
4