By the Gazette Editorial Board A few days after the relocation of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a Congressman suggested recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The Florida Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis, who attended the embassy's inauguration ceremony on Monday, May 14 returned home to present a proposal to the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs calling on Washington to recognise Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. DeSantis' suggestion cannot be seen as over-enthusiasm by a strong supporter of Israel; rather, it could be the start of a move to legalise the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan territories. The story is not strange as it is similar to what happened in 1995 when the US Congress violated International Law, that considered East Jerusalem to be occupied Palestinian territory, and issued the Jerusalem Embassy Act. This Act recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and called for it to remain an undivided city. The Act that became law without a presidential signature on November 8, 1995, allowed the president to invoke a six-month waiver of the application of the law and reissue the waiver every six months on "national security" grounds. The waiver was repeatedly renewed by the then president and those who succeeded him, until finally, it was signed by President Trump in June 2017. Strangely, Trump's signing of the law provoked more anger in the rest of the world, than the opposition issuing the law provoked in 1995, though the result was the same: US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in violation of International Law which considers East Jerusalem to be Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Now it seems to be the turn of the Golan Heights, another Arab territory occupied by Israel in 1967. Since its occupation, the world has considered it to be occupied Syrian territory. Even Israel never claimed that it owned it or that it was part of the State of Israel. What it did, is justify its occupation of it for security reasons and to protect the Israeli state against possible Syrian attacks, from the Golan Heights. So, the expectation was that Israel could end its occupation of the Heights once it concluded a peace accord with Syria, as was the case in Sinai, from which Israel accepted to withdraw its forces completely, after signing peace accords with Egypt in 1979. The failure of all attempts to reach a peace deal with Syria was used by Israel as an excuse to prolong its occupation of the Golan. But when Syria fell into the trap of violence and civil war following the so-called Arab Spring of 2011, Israel denied any intention of leaving the Golan. Instead, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in 2016 that the Golan Heights were part of Israel's sovereign territory. Various countries, including the US, under Obama's Administration, announced their opposition to Netanyahu's announcement and confirmed that the Golan Heights were not part of Israel. "The US position on the issue is unchanged. Those territories are not part of Israel and the status of those territories should be determined through negotiation. The current situation in Syria does not allow this," said US State Department Spokesperson John Kirby. According to International Law and the UN Charter, no state can claim the right to annex another state's territory. However, with Trump in the White House, Israel seems more able to swallow more of the Arab territories without any resistance from the rest of the world. Israel, with its supporters in Congress and at the White House, is taking advantage of the chaos and disorder in Syria today, not only to launch several attacks on Syrian territory, but also to announce the annexation of the Golan to the state of Israel. Thus, a mere suggestion made by a single Congressman might soon turn into reality, in the complete absence of logic and total disregard for International Law which has long been respected by the modern world.
