{"id":37065,"date":"2019-03-24T05:23:11","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T05:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=37065"},"modified":"2019-03-24T05:23:11","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T05:23:11","slug":"us-call-for-israeli-sovereignty-on-golan-contravenes-international-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=37065","title":{"rendered":"US call for Israeli sovereignty on Golan \u2018contravenes international law\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBAGHDAD: US President Donald Trump\u2019s statement recognizing Israel\u2019s sovereignty over the Golan Heights \u201ccontravenes international law,\u201d the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said on Twitter on Saturday.
Trump\u2019s statement on Thursday marked a dramatic shift in US policy over the status of a disputed area that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East conflict and annexed in 1981 \u2014 a move not recognized internationally.
The Syrian regime on Friday asked the UN Security Council to uphold resolutions declaring that Israel withdraw from the Golan Heights.
The regime\u2019s Ambassador Bashar Jaafari urged the council to \u201ctake practical measures to ensure that the council is fulfilling … its mandate in the implementation of its resolutions\u201d concerning the Golan, in a letter seen by AFP.
The council is scheduled to discuss the Golan on Wednesday during a meeting on renewing the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force deployed between Israel and Syria in the Golan, known as UNDOF.
In the letter, the ambassador also asked Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to reaffirm the UN position on Israel\u2019s occupation of the Golan, which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Asked about Trump\u2019s stance, UN spokesman Farhan Haq said UN policy was based on council resolutions and those of the General Assembly on the status of the Golan.
\u201cThe resolutions are of course unchanged,\u201d said Haq. \u201cOur policies have not changed in that regard.\u201d
The US backed Resolution 242 adopted in 1967, which calls on Israel to withdraw from territories it occupied in the Six-Day war and refers to the \u201cinadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.\u201d
The council adopted another resolution in 1973 that reaffirmed the demand for a withdrawal and in 1981, backed a separate measure that rejected Israel\u2019s annexation of the Golan.
After Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital, a group of Arab countries presented a resolution in 2017 condemning the decision to the General Assembly that won overwhelming support.
UN diplomats said it was premature to speculate as to whether there would be a similar measure in the assembly.
The US move \u2014 which came as Trump\u2019s ally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, faces elections \u2014 has caused dismay even among US allies, with France and Britain both saying that they still considered the Golan Heights to be \u201coccupied\u201d by Israel.
Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, feared the consequences of walking away from UN Security Council Resolution 242, which stressed the \u201cinadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.\u201d
\u201cThis is the most fundamental principle of international order and was the basis of US opposition to Saddam\u2019s conquest of Kuwait and Putin\u2019s of Crimea,\u201d he said, referring to the 1991 Gulf War in which a US-led coalition freed Kuwait and Russia\u2019s 2014 seizure of the Ukrainian peninsula.
Sweden\u2019s former Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said that Trump was returning to the law of the \u201cjungle.\u201d
\u201cThis is a catastrophic departure from the very basis of international law. Kremlin will applaud and apply the same principle to Crimea. Beijing will applaud and apply to South China Sea,\u201d Bildt tweeted.
France\u2019s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that recognizing Israeli sovereignty \u201cwould be contrary to international law, in particular the obligation for states not to recognize an illegal situation.\u201d
Steven Cook, an expert on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations, in an article in Foreign Policy questioned the need to shake up the status quo, saying that US recognition only triggered fresh opposition to Israel\u2019s longstanding control of the Golan, where 20,000 settlers live.
\u201cIn reality, there is no need for the recognition. Israel is in Golan for its own reasons, and nothing the Trump administration decides will change that,\u201d he wrote.
Ilan Goldenberg of the Center for a New American Security said that Trump\u2019s decision \u201cstirs a hornet\u2019s nest that didn\u2019t need stirring.\u201d
\u201cAlso, it makes it quite hard for the US to continue to contest Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea under the principle that taking territory by force is illegal. We now have no leg to stand on and the Russians will use it,\u201d he tweeted.
\u201cSo why do it? Because this is awesome for Bibi\u2019s politics,\u201d he said, using Netanyahu\u2019s nickname.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BAGHDAD: US President Donald Trump\u2019s statement recognizing Israel\u2019s sovereignty over the Golan Heights \u201ccontravenes international law,\u201d the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said on Twitter on Saturday.Trump\u2019s statement on Thursday marked a dramatic shift in US policy over the status of a disputed area that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East conflict and annexed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}