US rights report drops reference to Golan Heights being ‘occupied’
In an unprecedented change by the US Government, the Trump administration has dropped any reference to the Golan Heights being “occupied” by Israel in its latest Global Human Rights Report.
The State Department said the area is “Israeli-controlled”, in a yearly report that outlines human rights situations around the world.
For the second year, the report also does not use the words “occupied” or “occupation” in the sections relating the West Bank and Gaza.
The State Department said it did not consider this new phrasing to represent a policy change, arguing the report focuses on human rights rather than legal issues.
US Ambassador in the Bureau of Human Rights Michael Kozak, said that “occupied” is not a human rights term.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war.
Numerous UN resolutions have declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories to be illegal.
UN Resolution 2334 adopted in 2016, states that Israeli settlement activity is a “flagrant violation” of international law and has “no legal validity”.
Responding to the move Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s Executive Committee, said that “complicity in Israeli crimes is criminal” in a tweet that tagged US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as well as US Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt.
The US State Department said that “authorities subjected non-Israeli citizens in Jerusalem and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights to the same laws as Israeli citizens”.
Under US President Donald Trump, moved the US’s Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem last year – prompting weekly Friday protests on the Gaza strip – and ended funding for the UN aid agency supporting Palestine.
This month, the US State Department said it would merge its Palestinian mission and with the Israeli embassy.
The Trump Administration also closed Palestine’s office in Washington DC.
Israel has been lobbying the Trump administration to recognise the annexed Golan Heights as Israeli territory, but a senior US official told The National that any decision on the Golan Heights would be up to Mr Trump, and has not yet been made.
Last January, National Security Adviser John Bolton discussed the annexation of Golan on his trip to Israel and meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who urged the American official to recognise the occupation.
Although Mr Bolton’s tour of the Golan was cancelled due to bad weather, a number of senior US political figures have visited the area in recent months.
Several bills are also due for a vote in Congress to recognise the area as Israeli territory. Undisputed control of the region would give Tel Aviv a better shot at stopping its main enemies, Iran and Hezbollah, from entrenching themselves militarily there.
Israel’s army said yesterday it uncovered a unit created by Hezbollah across the ceasefire line in the Syrian Golan Heights and led by a commander previously jailed for an attack on US forces.
With President Bashar Al Assad regaining control of southern Syria with the help of Russia and Iran-backed Hezbollah, Israel is concerned a front against it could be established there.
Hezbollah, based in neighbouring Lebanon, has also been supporting Mr Al Assad in Syria’s civil war. The Shiite group is among Israel’s main enemies and the two fought a war in 2006.
The State Department’s annual report also sharply criticised Iran, saying it contributed to “human rights abuses in Syria through its military support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah forces there; in Iraq, through its aid to certain Iraqi Shia militia groups; and in Yemen, through its support for Houthi rebels and directing authorities in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen to harass and detain Bahais because of their religious affiliation.”
The report singled out the Iran-backed Iraqi Popular mobilisation forces (PMF), and said “civilian authorities did not maintain effective control over some elements of the security forces, particularly certain units of the PMF that were aligned with Iran.”