The UN Security Council has unanimously rejected Israel’s claim to sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and this is likely to cause tensions in the Middle East to rise even higher.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boldly declared “that the Golan Heights will remain under Israel’s sovereignty permanently.”
After close to 50 years of control over the Golan Heights, this should not have been much of a shock. But the Arab world immediately went into an uproar, and the UN Security Council has taken action.
In a unanimous decision, the UN Security Council has announced that Israel’s claims to the Golan Heights are “null and void and without international legal effect.”
Israel’s Prime Minister has declared that the Golan Heights will remain permanently under the country’s control, during Israel’s first Cabinet meeting held in the territory.
“The time has come for the international community to recognize reality, especially two basic facts,” said Benjamin Netanyahu during a Cabinet meeting Sunday.
“One, whatever is beyond the border, the boundary itself will not change. Two, after 50 years, the time has come for the international community to finally recognize that the Golan Heights will remain under Israel’s sovereignty permanently.”
Asking Israel to give the Golan Heights back to Syria is kind of like asking the United States to give Texas back to Mexico.
It just isn’t going to happen.
But thanks in large part to pressure from the Islamic world, the UN Security Council remains bound and determined to take that strategically important sliver of land away from Israel.
On Tuesday, the UN Security Council expressed “deep concern” that the Israeli government is claiming permanent sovereignty over the Golan Heights…
“Council members expressed their deep concern over recent Israeli statements about the Golan, and stressed that the status of the Golan remains unchanged,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi, president of the 15-nation Security Council this month, told reporters after a closed-door meeting.
He added that council resolution 497 of 1981 made clear that Israel’s decision at the time to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the Golan was “null and void and without international legal effect.”
Council statements are adopted by consensus, which means all its members, including Israel’s ally the United States, backed it.
Of course the Obama administration was definitely going to go along with this UN Security Council statement, because it has consistently proven to be the most anti-Israel administration in modern U.S. history.
Late last year, there was a lot of talk about a potential UN Security Council resolution which would have permanently divided the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem and that would have set the parameters for a Palestinian state. At that time, the Obama administration was not quite ready to pull the trigger.
However, now that the end of Obama’s second term is rapidly approaching, it appears that things have changed. There has been a lot of talk in the mainstream media about how such a resolution is now “on the table”, and members of Congress were so alarmed that 388 of them sent a letter to Obama urging him not to do this. The following comes from the Wall Street Journal…
Several hundred Democratic and Republican lawmakers are urging the White House not to back any resolution at the United Nations that sets parameters for Israeli-Palestinian talks, a move President Barack Obama has been considering.
In a letter to Mr. Obama, 388 members of the House, including Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, said U.S. support for a U.N. Security Council resolution would “dangerously hinder” the prospects of resuming direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.
“We are deeply troubled by reports that one-sided initiatives may arise at the U.N. in the coming months concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the letter says. http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/
