WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said Thursday that the United States should recognize Israel's authority over the Golan Heights, one of the world's most disputed territories, reversing decadeslong U.S. policy and violating a U.N. resolution.
The president's announcement, in a midday Twitter post, serves to recognize Israeli sovereignty over land that its troops seized in war. It came after repeated pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, which claimed the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and effectively annexed it in 1981. The U.N. Security Council has declared that Israel must withdraw from territory acquired by force.
"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!" Trump wrote.
In an interview later Thursday with the Fox Business Network, Trump said that he had considered recognizing the territory as part of Israel "for a long time" and that his decision was not meant to boost Netanyahu's chances in parliamentary elections.
"I wouldn't even know about that," the president said of the Israeli vote, set for April 9, in the interview with the Fox network's anchor, Maria Bartiromo.
"Every president has said, 'Do that,'" Trump said of his Golan Heights declaration. "I'm the one that gets it done."
The White House refused to comment or offer clarification on whether Trump's statement amounted to actual policy change on the Golan Heights, an area of land in Syria that abuts the borders of Israel, Jordan and Lebanon.
Netanyahu, however, considered it a done deal.
"First he recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the U.S. Embassy here. Then he pulled out of the disastrous Iran deal and reimposed sanctions," Netanyahu, standing next to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a news conference in Jerusalem, said of Trump. "But now he did something of equal historic importance -- he recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights."
Netanyahu called it "a miracle of Purim," referring to an ancient Jewish holiday being celebrated this week.
He also tweeted a note of thanks to Trump within minutes of the president's announcement.
"At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights," Netanyahu wrote. "Thank you President Trump!"
Israel has sought international recognition of its sovereignty over the Golan territory for years, but Netanyahu has intensified the effort with U.S. officials and lawmakers over the past several months. He has prominent Republican allies, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas.
Graham and Cruz are pushing legislation that would say the United States has a national-security interest in ensuring that "Israel retains control over the Golan Heights" as the Syrian war winds down and Syrian President Bashar Assad remains in power.
Graham, who toured the Golan Heights with Netanyahu earlier this month, tweeted his support for Trump's declaration: "President Trump's decision to recognize the Golan as part of Israel is strategically wise and overall awesome. Well done, Mr. President! Now I, along with Senator tedcruz, will try to get Congress to follow your lead."
Cruz, along with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., released a statement Thursday praising Trump's decision, saying it is an "acknowledgement that enhances the national security of both Israel and the United States."
"At a time when Israel's northern border is threatened by Iranian forces and their proxies in Lebanon and Syria, including by Hezbollah's rockets, armed drones, and newly discovered terror tunnels, this recognition will be great news for our ally and its right to self-defense," the statement said.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, also welcomed Trump's statement.
"We are at the beginning of a historic moment for the State of Israel," he said in a statement. "President Trump once again proves the strength of the alliance between the U.S. and Israel. The time has come for the world to recognize that the Golan Heights is an inseparable part of the State of Israel."
POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES
Trump's announcement is at odds with international law and decades of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The United Nations and the United States have steadfastly refused to recognize Israel's seizure of the Golan Heights and the West Bank in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, arguing that the contours of Israel and a new Palestinian state must be negotiated diplomatically.
Since then, Israel has treated the territory as part of its country, and the Jewish population has grown with the expansion of Israeli settlements. Syria has often criticized Israel's settlement of the territory in international forums.
The shift from Washington also has profound consequences for the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan being drafted by Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, since it will confront Arab leaders with the choice of acquiescing in Israel's annexation of Arab land.
"What shall tomorrow bring?" Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a veteran Palestinian negotiator, said in a tweet. "Certain destabilization and bloodshed in our region."
Analysts expressed anger at Trump's statement, saying that it violated the U.N. resolution adopted after the 1967 war and would embolden other leaders who seized territory.
"[Vladimir] Putin will use this as a pretext to justify Russia's annexation of Crimea," said Martin Indyk, a former peace negotiator and U.S. ambassador to Israel. "The Israeli right will use it as a pretext for Israel's annexation of the West Bank. It is a truly gratuitous move by Trump."
Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Trump in Washington next week and is expected to speak at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group that has wide support among U.S. politicians.
There have been signs that the Trump administration was moving in this direction. A recent State Department report on human-rights issues used the phrase "Israeli-controlled" instead of "Israeli-occupied" to describe the territories of the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza.
Before Trump's statement, Syria's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Hussam el-Din Ala, warned against Israel's "malicious attempts to exploit the situation and the latest developments in Syria and the region to consolidate the occupation" of the Golan Heights, the state Syrian Arab News Agency said.
Ala spoke during a symposium on the topic on the sidelines of a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Critics of Assad have noted that for as much as he and his government have talked about "liberating" the Golan Heights, they have taken little action to do so in decades.
Pompeo was in Jerusalem as part of a multination visit to the Middle East that will take him next to Lebanon, where he said he would talk to officials in Beirut about the threat posed by Hezbollah, a military group that is a major political player in the government. Lebanon claims a small sliver of territory that Israel occupies and administers as part of the Golan Heights.
Pompeo said of the Golan Heights, "that hard-fought real estate, that important place, is proper to be a sovereign part of the state of Israel."
"President Trump made a bold decision to recognize that, an important decision," Pompeo said at the news conference with Netanyahu. "For the people of Israel, it will truly be historic. And the people of Israel should know that the battles they fought, the lives they lost on that very ground were worthy and meaningful and important for all time."
Information for this article was contributed by Eileen Sullivan, Edward Wong and Mark Landler of The New York Times; and by Anne Gearan, Loveday Morris, John Wagner and Carol Morello of The Washington Post.
A Section on 03/22/2019