No, don’t believe the title I have chosen. It is misleading. In fact, it is the United States of America which has stopped to refer to the Golan Heights as Israel occupied territory but is referring to the Golan Heights as the “Israel controlled Golan Heights’’ thus giving the impression that the “Golan Heights’’ belongs to the State of Israel.
I don’t understand how so called independent observers failed to recall that nearly three years ago the United Nations security council rejected the pompous claim of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said that the annexed Golan Heights in Syria would “for ever and ever’’ remain part of Israel.
In 1981 the United Nations adopted a resolution which states that Israel’s decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights was null and void, and without any International legal effect the annexation of the Golan Heights which was seized from Syria in the 1967 war has never been recognised by the International Community and is against the basic International law. Do you know that around 24,000 Israelis live on the Golan Heights.
In 2018 thousands of Syrian residents boycotted the first municipal elections held on Golan Heights as they believed and still believe it is a strategy by Israel to “Israelize’’ the territory.
It is clear that the United States of America is adopting the strategy of Israel to “Israelize’’ the Golan Heights. And the sad part is that the “Israelization’’ is not to be found within the far right of the Republican Party. But in the latest annual Human Rights Report of the Us department. The state department said that the wording is a legal status issue and not a Human Rights issue. Must we understand that stealing the land of another country is divorced from Human Rights issues? The Us department is saying it is a semantic issue. No! It can’t be. The dropping by the United States in an official report shows how the Trump’s administration is slowly manipulating everything it can to tilt oppressed people to the benefit of Israel. And it came at a time when Syria is at war with itself.
Must we forget that in 2017 US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel against International consensus and United Nations resolutions?
It is to be noted that the annexation of the Golan Heights from Syria happened in 1981 (and not to be confused with its seizure during the 1967 six day war) and that annexation has never been accepted by the world.
In February 2019 US senators and congressmen introduced a piece of legislation in the House of representatives and the Senate to formally recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The piece of legislation which is co-sponsored by republicans (seven senators and 23 in the House of Representatives) is now before the foreign affairs committee of each chamber.
The civil war in Syria since 2011 has changed the whole panorama. Now only for the Golan Heights! Expect more to come. US senator Lindsey Graham (very close to Donald Trump and may be next vice President if Trump is re-elected) said on the 11th of March 2019, during a visit to the Golan Heights with Benjamin Netanyahu that he will do everything in his capacity for the United States of America to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights… Do you believe in coincidences?
RAMA VALAYDEN
