Trump gives Golan Heights ‘gift’ to Israel’s Netanyahu, who compares him to a Persian king

With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, US President Donald Trump declared that the Golan Heights belongs to Israel – handing another major diplomatic victory to the premier ahead of tight elections.

Netanyahu spared no praise as he watched Trump sign the Golan proclamation at the White House, likening him to president Harry S. Truman, who recognised Israel, and even to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who freed the Jews of Babylon.

“Your decision to recognise Israel’s sovereignty on the Golan Heights is so historic,” Netanyahu told Trump.

Israel captured the territory from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967.

“Your recognition is a twofold act of historic justice. Israel won the Golan Heights in a just war of self-defence, and the Jewish people’s roots in the Golan go back thousands of years,” he said.

Trump – who in 2017 took the even more momentous step of recognised disputed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – called the Golan declaration “a long time in the making”.

“It should have taken place many decades ago,” said Trump, who had revealed his intentions on the Golan on Thursday in a Twitter message.

The proclamation noted the “unique circumstances” presented by the Golan, language that appeared am attempt to counter criticism that the recognition would be used by other countries to justify control of disputed territory.

Syria, allies slam Donald Trump’s declaration that US will recognise Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights

Netanyahu was visiting Washington for the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel US lobby, but cut his visit short after a rocket fired Monday from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip hit a house north of Tel Aviv, wounding seven Israelis in an unusually long-range attack.

“Today, aggressive acts by Iran and terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, in southern Syria continue to make the Golan Heights a potential launching ground for attacks on Israel,” Trump said in the proclamation.

Netanyahu, a wily right-winger who this year would become the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, is facing an unexpectedly stiff challenge in April 9 elections from centrist Benny Gantz, who also came to Washington for AIPAC.

But Trump was isolated in the move, with the United Nations and US allies France and Britain all saying they still considered the Golan Heights “Israeli-occupied” in line with UN resolutions.

Syria denounced the “blatant attack” on its sovereignty, while Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused Trump for giving “virtually an election gift” to Netanyahu.

Iranian President Hassan Rowhani slammed Trump’s move as illegal.

“No one could imagine that a person in America comes and gives land of a nation to another occupying country, against international laws and conventions … Such action is unprecedented,” Rowhani was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

Despite its close ties to Washington, Saudi Arabia joined its rivals, with Riyadh expressing its “firm rejection and condemnation of the US administration’s declaration”, according to a statement published by the state news agency.

The Kremlin said Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov told US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a phone call that the US decision was “a gross violation of international law” and “aggravates the situation” in the Middle East.

Israel annexed the Golan in 1981 but had won no international support. The territory had long been seen as a comparatively easy problem to resolve, as both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Golan’s 20,000 settlers are largely secular in a region dominated by religious feuds.

Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said Trump seems to want to “drive a wrecking ball” through international law that protects the people who live in “occupied Golan Heights”.

He said it could embolden other “occupying states to double down on their own land grabs, settlements and plunder of resources”.

Additional reporting by Associated Press, Reuters