Washington: US President Donald Trump on Monday recognized Israel’s 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights in an election boost for visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, prompting a sharp response from Syria, which once held the strategic land.
With Netanyahu looking over his shoulder at the White House, Trump signed a proclamation officially granting US recognition of the Golan as Israeli territory – a dramatic shift from decades of US policy.
The move, which Trump announced in a tweet last Thursday, appeared to be the most overt gesture by the Republican president to help Netanyahu, who had been pressing Trump for the move since February 2017.
Israel captured the Golan in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981 in a move not recognised internationally.
Netanyahu, who faces an election on April 9, earlier on Monday said he was cutting short his US visit after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, blamed on Hamas, wounded seven people near Tel Aviv. Israel launched retaliatory air strikes in Gaza.
Israel’s prime minister arrived in Washington on Sunday, originally for a four-day trip.
Read the article in The Sydney Morning Herald (Reuters).
His chief rival for the premiership, Benny Gantz, also visited the US capital, telling a major pro-Israel lobbying organisation that he was the better alternative to lead the country.
In signing the proclamation, Trump said “This was a long time in the making.”
Read the article by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason in The Sydney Morning Herald (Reuters).