Source : www.thehindu.com
Date : 2019-03-26
GOLAN HEIGHTS BELONGS TO ISRAEL: U.S.
Relevant for: International Relations | Topic: Effect of policies and politics of developed & developing countries
on India’s interests
A house in Mishmeret, Israel that was damaged following Monday’s rocket strike.APAriel Schalit
With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, U.S. President Donald Trump declared on Monday that the Golan Heights belongs to Israel. Mr. Netanyahu spared no praise as he watched Mr. Trump sign the Golan proclamation at the White House, likening him to President Harry S. Truman, who recognised Israel, and even to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who freed the Jews of Babylon.
“Your decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty on the Golan Heights is so historic,” Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Trump. The Jewish state captured the territory from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967. “Your recognition is a two-fold act of historic justice. Israel won the Golan Heights in a just war of self-defence, and the Jewish people’s roots in the Golan go back thousands of years,” he said. Mr. Netanyahu was visiting Washington for the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee but cut his visit short after a rocket fired on Monday from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip hit a house north of Tel Aviv, wounding seven Israelis in an unusually long-range attack.
Just as Mr. Netanyahu entered the White House, Israeli warplanes struck targets in Gaza linked to Hamas with the Prime Minister vowing to respond “forcefully to this wanton aggression”.
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