Washington denies changing its policy on Israel’s Golan sovereignty

The United States rejected as “false” a claim by The Washington Free Beacon that it had “walked back” its recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights.

Near Eastern Affairs account on Friday.

It spoke up less than 24 hours after the Beacon published its report, which claimed that the US was rescinding the Golan sovereignty recognition granted Israel in 2018 under the Trump administration.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967 and annexed it in 1981. The international community has refused to recognize Israeli sovereignty there and routinely calls on Israel at the United Nations to return it to Syria. To date, the US is the only country to have supported Israel’s Golan annexation.

A Syrian presence on the Golan hilltops overlooking the Jewish state is considered by Israel to be an existential threat. Israel has no plans to return the territory to Syria, given the state of enmity between them.

Iran’s attempt to entrench itself militarily in Syria has only underscored for Israel the necessity of holding onto the mountain range that borders the two countries.

A diplomatic source said that “the issue of the Golan Heights has not come up at all in the dialogue with the Americans.”

The Biden administration has insisted, when asked about former US President Donald Trump’s Golan sovereignty recognition, that it has not changed its policy – but it refrained from promising to maintain that policy stance in the future.

Its failure to do so has opened the door to speculation that President Joe Biden would in the future halt recognition of the Golan. Republicans in Congress are already pushing for legislation to prevent Biden from doing so.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken of the importance the Golan holds for Israel’s security. A statement last week by US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, however, indicated that the Biden administration would in the future review that policy – but she set no date for such a process.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid accused the Beacon of attempting to undermine the new Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, which was sworn into office earlier this month, by creating the impression of a rift between Israel and the US on this matter.

“The Golan Heights is a strategic asset and an integral part of the sovereign State of Israel,” Lapid wrote. “The US has recognized our sovereignty over the Golan Heights and its strategic importance to Israel’s security. Anyone who spreads rumors about the revocation of this recognition harms [Israel’s] security – harms the declaration of sovereignty.”

Those who spread such rumors, Lapid tweeted, are “willing (not for the first time) to cause real damage to the State of Israel [and] endanger its security and relations with the United States, only with the aim to harm the new government.”

Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, who is a member of Bennett’s Yamina Party, tweeted that the existing government has already pledged to increase communal development on the Golan and thereby increase the Israeli population there. Attempts to undermine Israel’s hold on the Golan with “fake news” are doomed to fail, Shaked tweeted.

Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Oded Forer said he had instructed his office to prepare a text for a government declaration in support of the Golan and Israeli development there.