MPPM condemns the US announcement recognising Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights

MPPM condemns the statement made yesterday, 21 March, by President Donald Trump that “it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights”. The Golan Heights, occupied by Israel 52 years ago, are internationally recognized as part of the territory of Syria, and therefore such a declaration grossly violates international legality, including the United Nations Charter, Article 2 of which states that the use of force against the territorial integrity of any state is inadmissible.

Following the 1967 war in which Israel occupied the Golan Heights, as well as the Egyptian Sinai and the Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967 underlined the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and affirmed the need for “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”.

Subsequently, Security Council Resolution 497 of 17 December 1981 — adopted following the adoption by Israel on 14 December of the so-called “Golan Heights Law”, which extended Israeli “Law, jurisdiction and administration” to illegally occupied territory — reaffirmed that “the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible”, declared the Israeli decision “null and void and without international legal effect” and demanded that “Israel, the occupying Power”, rescind its decision.

The announcement by the US president is far from being merely a sudden and ill-considered act of gross interference in the ongoing electoral campaign in Israel, in favour of the Israeli prime minister seeking re-election — and Benjamin Netanyahu immediately thanked Trump  effusively for his announcement, taking the opportunity to once again wave up the “Iranian threat” scarecrow.

Much more is at stake, and Trump's own text states it: the Golan Heights are of “critical strategic importance”. In fact, the 1150 km2 of the Golan Heights that Israel occupies — and where it has set up dozens of illegal settlements — is of enormous importance from the point of view of water resources (a third of Israel's water comes from there). Its altitude (including the 2800m-high Mount Hermon) and its proximity to Damascus give it an enormous strategic military value.

Trump's announcement follows an entire policy of his administration, since he took office, of support for the most right-wing government in the history of Israel and the most radical Zionist sectors, as well as declared hostility to the Palestinian people.

This policy has been reflected to date in the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the transfer of its embassy there, also in violation of international law, and also in the cut of funding to UNRWA, the UN agency assisting Palestinian refugees, with a view to undermining their status and their right to return, enshrined in UN General Assembly resolution 194. And, in a broader strategic plan, of imperial intervention in the Middle East, in line with the wishes of Israel and with the most backward sectors in the region, in the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran.

The report on human rights published on the 13 November by the US State Department abandoned the previously used designation, “occupied by Israel”, when referring to the West Bank and the Golan Heights. It has now been proven that this was not a simple change in terminology. And the statement by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, yesterday in Israel, that the language was used “with great intentionality. We didn't make a mistake” is fraught with menace.

Are we to understand that the United States now recognizes the annexation of the forcibly conquered Golan Heights and is preparing the ground for the recognition of Israel's annexation of all or part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories? The news that has been leaking about the much-vaunted — but not yet revealed — “deal of the century” on the Palestinian question is such as to make one fear the worst.

MPPM condemns any attempt to create faits accomplis regarding the Syrian Golan Heights — as well as regarding the occupied Palestinian territories — outside of international law.

MPPM denounces the destabilising effect in the Middle East region and on international relations in general of Donald Trump's act, which rewards the violation of the territorial integrity of States and the acquisition of territories by force.

MPPM demands that the Portuguese government, acting in accordance with the UN Charter and the Constitution of the Republic, does not condone and counteracts, by all means at its disposal, this further violation by the Trump administration of the peoples' rights and the basic principles of international relations.

MPPM reiterates its solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for their inalienable national rights, namely for a Palestinian State in the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, with a just solution to the refugee problem, in accordance with the UN resolutions, and reaffirms its solidarity with the Syrian people in the struggle to regain the integrity of the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, and in particular the Golan Heights illegally occupied by Israel for 52 years.

22 March 2019

The National Directorate of MPPM