Donald Trump’s historic proclamation announcing US acceptance of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights has much to do with the tough fight Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces in next month’s election. But the President’s reversal of decades of US policy on the highly strategic Golan is timely recognition of Middle Eastern reality. It should leave neither Russia, Iran nor the Assad regime in Damascus in any doubt about Mr Trump’s determination to defend Israel. Mr Netanyahu, significantly, was with Mr Trump in the Oval Office when he issued the proclamation.
For 52 years — since Israel seized control of the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War — no country has been willing to recognise Israeli sovereignty over territory that has been described as the “linchpin” of the Jewish state’s defence. As The Jerusalem Post noted, if Israel had bowed to international pressure and given up on the Golan Heights, “we would have Iran, our greatest and most powerful enemy, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, threatening us from the high ground overlooking much of Israel’s north”.
Read the editorial in The Australian.