One might say that the United States has had a complicated relationship with Israel over the years, but that ties into the fact that the State of Israel has a complicated history in general.
From competing homeland claims from multiple peoples in the region to the way the scope of Israeli territory has changed since it was established in 1948 to the legitimacy of its use of that territory, there are many reasons why questions about its role in the Middle East remain as hotly debated as they were decades ago.
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The government’s occupation of the Golan Heights region serves as one of those debate topics and based on his recent announcement, the Israeli Prime Minister was clearly happy with how President Trump made his position in that debate known.
Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took time out of his Passover celebrations for a brief announcement.
In a YouTube video shot on location at the Golan Heights region, he announced that after the Passover holidays conclude on Saturday, he will introduce a resolution to the Israeli government calling for a new community in the area.
These plans wouldn’t necessarily interest many Americans on their own, but the unusual part is that he is also planning to name it after President Donald Trump.
As Netanyahu put it in the video , “All Israelis were deeply moved when President Trump made his historic decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.”
To understand what’s so significant about what Trump did here, it’s necessary to get into some of the region’s history.
Namely, that Israel occupied the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six Day War–also known as the Third Arab-Israeli War–back in 1967 before formally annexing it in 1981.
Ever since, the region has existed under Israeli military control.
However, this control has been considered “null and void and without international effect” by the international community.
Furthermore, the United Nations Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council have all repeatedly called on Israel to reverse this annexation, but the most recent example of these demands occurred in 2009.
So an unequivocal declaration of support from another world leader in Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights is rare.
Although the United States is a long-time ally of Israel, The Daily Mail reported that outright declaring the Golan Heights as Israel’s rightful territory is unusual even among U.S. Presidents.
This isn’t the only way in which President Trump has broken with traditional U.S. policy with regards to Israel.
The Daily Mail also reported that back in 2017, Trump announced that he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
This echoes claims made by the Israeli government since 1949, when its first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, said that although it was necessary for Israel to establish the seat of its government in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem is its “eternal” capital.
This claim also hasn’t gone without dispute in the international community.
Indeed, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution affirming “that the status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, remains one of military occupation.”
This resolution also affirms the right of Palestinians to self-determination and to sovereignty over their territory, which includes East Jerusalem.
It’s worth noting that the United States was one of the six nations that voted against this resolution.
Despite this, The Daily Mail reported that the American government has spent decades without making any official statement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital until President Trump did so two years ago.
