The
Trump Administration has delivered yet another concession to Israel’s
embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of parliamentary
elections: the Israeli military occupation of much of the Palestinian
West Bank and of the Golan Heights will no longer be referred to in
official U.S. government documents as an occupation. America’s so-called
Ambassador to Israel is a former Trump lawyer named David Friedman who
is more involved in serving Israel than the United States. He personally
supports the view
that the illegal Jewish settlements are legitimately part of Israel,
choosing to ignore their growth even though it has long been U.S. policy
to oppose them. He has also long sought to change the State
Department’s language on the Israeli control of the West Bank and Golan
Heights, being particularly concerned about the expression “occupied,”
which has legal implications. Now he appears to have won that fight, to
the delight of the Netanyahu government.
And
the expunging of “occupied” might be only the first of many gifts
intended to bolster Netanyahu’s chances. Senator Lindsey Graham, who
also boasts of his close ties to the Israeli Prime Minister, intends to
initiate legislative action to go one step further and compel the United
States to actually recognize Israel’s sovereignty
over the Golan Heights, the Syrian territory that was annexed after
fighting in 1967, but which has not been recognized as part of Israel by
any other country or international body. If a vote on the bill is
pushed forward and goes as expected virtually unanimously as the subject
before congress is Israel, it would hugely benefit Bibi. Some sources
are also predicting that recognition of the Golan Heights could easily
lead to U.S. government recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over much of
the West Bank.........http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/aipac-is-coming-to-town-again/
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