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• UNITED METHODISTS' NEWS:
Response to GC2019; 2019 Resolutions;
Oppose Anti-Free Speech Bill; MFSA Says "No"; UMC Board's Actions
• PARTNERS' NEWS
Two Steps Forward for Lutherans; AMP: 500 Strong on Capitol Hill; JVP: "Zionism, a false & failed answer"
IN THE NEWS: ISRAEL/PALESTINE
• SUMUD: The Great March Continues
• UN Report: Israeli War Crimes
• Removing Last Restraints in Hebron
• Palestinian Revenues, Economic Crisis
• Waging War on Prisoners
• Deporting and Denying Entry
• Israeli Elections: Game-changer or...?
IN THE NEWS: UNITED STATES
• Ilhan Omar and a New Frontier
• US, Israel Fight Int'l Criminal Court
• Airbnb Whirlwind Ends in Disgrace
• Occupied no longer? Golan Heights
• Deal of the Century...Not!
IN THE NEWS: SPOTLIGHT
• Black-Palestinian Solidarity
• SEIZE THE DAY
Coming Events, June-Dec 2019
• THE HOLY LAND BECKONS:
News on ethical tourism AND
Upcoming 2019 Trips
UMKR Newsletter - Winter-Spring 2019
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IN THE NEWS: UNITED STATES
Golan Heights: "Occupied" No Longer?
In early March, the U.S. State Department
referred to the Golan Heights as
"Israeli-controlled territory" in its annual
human rights report for 2018, a significant
change from decades of reports that
acknowledged the area as "occupied territory"
under international law.
The report’s section on the West Bank and
Gaza Strip — areas that Israel captured
along with the Golan Heights during the
Six-Day War in 1967 — also did not refer
to those territories as being "occupied" or
under "occupation."
In a press release from Churches for Middle East Peace, CMEP Executive Director Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Canon stated: “The U.S. State Department’s Human Rights Reports are a critical tool for monitoring violations of human rights in Israel and the occupied territories and around the world. It is critical that rhetoric around historic U.S. foreign policy not be changed to reflect the biases of any given Administration.”
Speaking on the State Department’s change of terminology, Yousef Munayyer Executive Director of US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, states: “Perhaps, however, this is a clarifying moment. If the territories are not occupied, what will the State Department tell us their status is? Are they prepared to acknowledge the Apartheid reality that Israel has established on the ground? They may have just unintentionally done so.”
Noura Erakat, a Palestinian-American legal scholar and human rights attorney, who has served as Legal Counsel to the House of Representatives observes: “Unfortunately, this move is consistent with the Trump administration’s policies towards Israel/Palestine, including moving the US embassy to Israel to Jerusalem in violation of 70 years of official US policy and international law, and cutting funding for humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees. “It is yet another nail in the coffin of the two-state solution and a major step towards making permanent the apartheid regime Israel has implemented in the territories it controls between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in which millions of Palestinians are treated as second class citizens inside Israel and denied even the most basic of rights in the occupied territories, simply because they are not Jewish. What remains to be seen is whether the international community responds with the urgency that this development merits, with boycotts, sanctions, and arms embargoes, as occurred during apartheid in South Africa.”
In August 2018, Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton had said that a formal U.S. endorsement of Israel’s control over the Golan Heights was not under discussion. The State Department denied that the change in language in the March 2019 indicated any change in official US policy regarding the regions under Israeli military occupation.
Nevertheless, that change in
language accurately foreshadowed
the bombshell dropped by President
Trump later in March, when he signed
a proclamation that officially
recognizes Israel’s sovereignty
over the Golan Heights. The US also
has revised its official international
maps to show the Golan Heights as part
of Israel.
This Syrian territory on the northern
border of Israel was taken by Israel in
the June 1967 war and is included in
UN SC 242, in which the UN Security
Council unanimously declared Israel
must relinquish the territories occupied
as a result of that war, citing the
“inadmissibility of the acquisition of
territory by war” for all UN member
nations. Israel has ignored
UN SC Resolution 242 ever since.
Many analysts see in Trump’s action a looming danger: the possible acceptance of Israel’s sovereignty over occupied Palestinian territories. Indeed, Netanyahu has claimed the U.S. action sets such a precedent. Trump’s and Netanyahu’s wishes notwithstanding, their two nations do not have the authority to change international law, although currently they are flouting it more outrageously than ever.
Over 130,000 residents of the Golan Heights were expelled from their villages, towns, and cities during the 1967 war. As in the case of Palestinian refugees, for decades Israeli claimed that these inhabitants left of their own accord. Similarly to its actions after the 1948 war, Israel destroyed villages across the Syrian territory to ensure refugees could not return and built Jewish communities in their place. Today, there are an estimated 500,000 refugees and descendants not permitted to return to their homeland.
Of the few thousand Druze Syrians who were allowed to remain after the 1967 war, most rejected Israeli citizenship and have continued to resist the Israeli occupation. Israel’s de facto annexation the Golan Heights in 1981 was universally condemned. Israel’s attempt to permanently and illegally retain occupied territory was declared “null and void” by the UN Security Council Almost everyone in Israel celebrated Trump’s recent announcement, but the rebuke from the international community was swift and sharp, including a unanimous statement by the nations of the European Union.
Ten Christian denominations and organizations, include the UMC General Board of Church and Society issued a statement, that includes: “We see this reversal of consistent US policy and international consensus—that the Golan Heights are occupied and were acquired by force in the 1967 War in contravention of international norms—as an abandonment by the US of diplomacy to resolve such issues. We have witnessed the Trump Administration’s approach to the Israel/Palestine over the past two years, and see this step as a continuation of the White House’s unwillingness to consider the
implications of such actions for the possibility of a peaceful and just resolution to the region’s conflicts….We recognize that, just because the US says it is so does not make it so, but we also acknowledge the disproportionate influence that US policy has in the region, and how US policies have not led to a just and peaceful resolution to the conflicts there.”
All to predictably, feeling empowered by Trump's dismissal of international law and the rights of indigenous Syrians, Israel now has made plans for hugely expanded colonization of the occupied Golan Heights. Syrians in that region have vowed to resist, but will have little chance of success on their own. They will need united support by human rights defenders worldwide.
READ MORE
STATE DEPARTMENT HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT
Haaretz: In First, U.S. Drops 'Occupied' From Report on West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights
On Monday, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham visited the Golan Heights alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and revealed plans to work toward American recognition of the Golan Heights as part of Israel.
The Guardian: US alters Golan Heights designation from 'Israeli-occupied' to 'Israeli-controlled'
However, Israel has been lobbying hard for the Trump administration to recognise sovereignty over the volcanic plateau it occupied more than half a century ago and later annexed. Washington appears to be moving in that direction. In November, it opposed for the first time a UN resolution calling for Israel to end its occupation of the 1,200 sq km (460 sq miles) area, breaking its previously long-standing stance of abstaining.
Mondoweiss: State Dept refers to Golan Heights and Palestinian Territories as ‘Israeli-controlled’ instead of ‘occupied’
During a press briefing, State Department official Michael Kozak told journalists that the report was retitled in order to refer to the geographic region. “This is not a human rights issue. It’s a legal status issue… and ‘occupied territory’ has a legal meaning to it. I think what they tried to do was shift more to just a geographic description,” Kozak said. “My understanding from the policy bureaus on this is that there’s no change in our outlook or our policy vis-a-vis the territories and the need for a negotiated settlement
there… We decided not to use the term in the reports because it’s not a human rights term and it was distracting.”
…“In its zealous pursuit to justify and mainstream the right wing agenda in Israel, the Trump administration has made a mockery of the Human Rights ‘Report’ and reaffirmed its complicity in the promotion and support of human rights violations against the Palestinian people,” Ashrawi said.
Churches for Middle East Peace: US Government’s Human Rights Report Intentional Omission of the Status of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights as Occupied Territories Deeply Problematic
The State Department has issued an annual report on human rights in every United Nations member state since 1977. These reports have included a section titled “Israel and The Occupied Territories” since 1979. The failure to acknowledge the reality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights downplays the systemic nature of the human rights violations documented in the 2017 report. These include reports of “politically and religiously motivated killings by non-state groups and individuals; administrative detention of Palestinians...; and legal requirements and official rhetoric that adversely affected the operating environment for human rights nongovernmental organizations.”
Haaretz: How the U.S. State Department Deleted the Occupied Territories
Recently the Acting Secretary of State, John J. Sullivan, released the State Department’s annual human rights report covering nearly 200 countries and territories around the world. The report is required by U.S. law and is used as a factual resource for Congress, the Executive and Judicial branches in their decision-making processes….In his remarks during the launch of this year’s report, Acting Secretary Sullivan stated that: "Our foreign policy reflects who we are and promotes freedom as a matter of principle and interest. We seek to lead other nations by example in promoting just and effective governance based on the rule of law and respect for human rights. The United States will continue to
support those around the world struggling for human dignity and liberty."
It is difficult to argue with these sentiments. But they do ring jarringly hollow when read alongside this year’s report on Israel and Palestine.
Lobelog; Lara Friedman of APN: Not Breaking News: Trump Administration
Does Not Believe in Occupation
Starting from virtually the moment President Trump took office in January 2017, he and his Middle East team began implementing a far-reaching transformation of U.S. policy vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians. Their intention: to erase the very assumptions upon which the Oslo peace process, and the consensus.
U.S. RECOGNITION OF ISRAELI ANNEXATION OF GOLAN HEIGHTS
Times of Israel: US publishes first map showing Golan as Israeli territory
timesofisrael.com/us-publishes-first-map-showing-golan-as-israeli-territory
The US has for the first time published a map showing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, three weeks
after President Donald Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau. US Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt tweeted a picture of the map on Tuesday, saying: “Welcome to the newest addition of our international maps system.” The map shows the 1974 ceasefire line between Israel and Syria as a permanent border, whereas the border with Lebanon continues to be demarcated as the 1949 armistice line. The map also notes that the West Bank is Israeli-occupied, with its final status to be determined in peace talks.
Military Court Watch: US State Department - Human Rights Report (March 2019)
The combination of these developments [change in State Dept language and U.S. Recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights] makes it uncertain what legal principles underpin State Department reports and calls into question the US’s commitment to the principle of non-acquisition of territory by force enshrined in Article 2 of the UN Charter; a principle universally accepted since 1945. These developments potentially have far reaching legal implications beyond the region including the situations in Crimea and the South China Sea.
VOX: Trump just made a highly controversial decision about Israel — again
vox.com/world/2019/3/21/18276101/trump-israel-netanyahu-golan-heights
First, by formally recognizing Israeli control over the Golan Heights — territory it took from Syria decades ago — Trump has effectively endorsed forcibly taking land from other countries. That might embolden world leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin to refer back to this moment when he defends his nation’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, says Martin Indyk, who served as
special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from 2013 to 2014. “It sets a dreadful principle,” he
added….
Second, Trump’s move undermines standing international laws. There are two in particular that are
pertinent. UN Security Council Resolution 242, known more commonly as the “land for peace” resolution, has been in place since the end of the Six-Day War. It has formed the backbone of the decades-long peace process between Israel and Arab states, according to Brookings Institution fellow Khaled Elgindy, mainly because it affirms that regional countries can’t take land from others. “Without 242, there is no peace process as such, only an arbitrary reality determined by Israeli power and endorsed by the US,” he said.
Then there’s UN Security Council Resolution 497, adopted in December 1981, which notes that “the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible” and, more to the point, “the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction, and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void.”
CNBC: Trump officially recognized Israel’s annexation of the occupied Golan Heights.
Here’s what it means
The decision is major in a few ways. It’s yet another rejection by the Trump administration of decades of U.S. policy; it recognizes Israeli sovereignty over a territory internationally recognized as belonging to an Arab state; and it’s seen as a boost to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israel’s elections. It also makes things awkward for Washington’s Arab allies, whose populations oppose Israeli seizures of Arab lands….“American recognition of the annexation would contravene international law,” Ian Bremmer, founder and CEO of risk consultancy Eurasia Group, wrote in an email note this week. “It would be used by the Russians to legitimize their annexation of Crimea,” he added. “Plus, it would make movement on the peace plan considerably more awkward.”
Tree of Life Educational Fund: The Golan is Occupied Syria!
In the ascent of Jawlan or Golan Heights, in contrast to the West Bank, there are no check points that one has to cross, evidence that Israel, against international law, has long since annexed land that belongs to the people of Syria. Evidence of the Six-Day War can be seen in a bombed out Mosque in which our groups frequently stop for interfaith prayer to recommit ourselves to overcoming all forms of Islamaphobia. On the way to the Syrian city of Majdal Shams, one can see abandoned tanks and open land mines in which children, pets and livestock have been horribly victimized.
+972 Magazine: Talk of Golan annexation leaves out those expelled from it
The vast majority of Israelis are still unaware that over 130,000 residents of the Golan Heights were expelled from their villages, towns, and cities during the 1967 war. In fact, over the past decades, the territory has become a “consensus” issue among most Israelis, with many seeing no reason to return it. So while President Trump stunned the world last week by recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan, in Israel almost everyone celebrated the move.
Al-Monitor: Golan residents unhappy, yet unsurprised by US decision
A more interesting reaction, however, took place in the occupied Golan Heights itself, where demonstrations were staged March 23 on both sides of the fence separating the areas under Israeli occupation and the rest of Syrian territory. Residents of the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams protested the US decision along with their counterparts on the Quneitra side. But demonstrations aside, the US decision was no great surprise for the 20,000 Syrian residents that remain in five villages in the occupied Golan.
American Muslims for Palestine: The Trump Administration Recognizes Israel's Sovereignty Over Golan Heights While Gaza Bombed Ruthlessly
The Trump administration’s decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington, DC to address the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and just two weeks before Israeli parliamentary elections in which the beleaguered Netanyahu, who faces possible indictment on corruption charges, is fighting for his political life. The Trump administration’s decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights at this time is widely perceived by analysts as attempt by Washington to intervene in the Israeli elections on Netanyahu’s behalf.
Associated Press: The Latest: UN views annexation of the Golan ‘null and void’
Updates on Netanyahu’s visit to Washington DC in March 2019 include statements and reactions from around the world to U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
CNN: Trump says it's time for US to recognize 'Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights'
"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability," Trump tweeted. The announcement hands Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a significant foreign policy victory, less than three weeks before Israelis head to the polls to decide whether he should remain in power. The move comes just days before Netanyahu is set to join Trump at the White House and follows weeks during which Netanyahu has renewed his push for the US to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel.
Democracy Now: “Hold Israel Accountable:” Palestinians Call on Int’l Community to Oppose Golan Heights Annexation
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington on Monday to meet with President Trump, who signed an order officially recognizing Israel’s control of the Golan Heights in defiance of international law. We speak with Budour Hassan, a Palestinian writer and project coordinator for the Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights, and Jehad Abusalim, scholar and policy analyst from Gaza. He runs the Gaza Unlocked campaign for the United States for the American Friends Service Committee.
Haaretz: Donald Trump Has Just Legitimized Israel's Illegal Conquest of Occupied Territory
U.S. President Donald Trump’s formal recognition of the Golan Heights - captured from Syria in the June
1967 War - as part of Israel could be considered even more dangerous than his decision to recognize
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
To be sure, the Golan Heights do not have the emotional attachment Jerusalem has. But from a legal
perspective, Israeli scholars had at least fashioned plausible legal arguments in support of Israel’s claim
to Jerusalem, even though these claims are being challenged by the Palestinians at the International
Court of Justice. When it comes to the Golan Heights, however, Israel has never articulated a plausible
legal argument to retain it.
…
Just think of China’s claim to the islands in the South China Sea, or its claim to Askai Chin in Jammu and
Kashmir. How can President Trump square his decision to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel
when the U.S. government strongly condemned Russia’s annexation of the Crimea? How would President
Trump or the European Union react were the Arab states to recognize the independence of Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus, and establish diplomatic relations with it – in spite of UN Security Council
condemnation?
As I have previously argued here in Haaretz, we are now living in a world where the permanent members
of the Security Council no longer agree on the basic rules of international legal order. It may be argued
that this was always so, but that states did not articulate these differences publicly.
Haaretz: EU States Unanimously Announce: We Do Not Recognize Israeli Sovereignty Over Golan Heights
The statement follows a previous one from the EU delegation in Israel on Friday, which came after U.S.
President Donald Trump's declaration that it is time to recognize Israel's sovereignty there.
Mogherini's statement differs in that it required a consensus among all 28 member states to be released.
Therefore, it reflects the official stance of countries such as Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania,
Austria, Lithuania and Romania - whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu courted in recent years in
order to break up the unanimity within the EU when it comes to Israel.
Global Research: The Occupied Golan Heights: How Israel Thrives from Syria’s Natural Resources
Of course, such persistence can prove to be quite lucrative when the land is abundant in resources – especially land as fertile as the Syrian Golan – a generous source of gushing waters and game changing oil reserves. In fact, the Golan Heights contributes a quenching one-third of Israel’s entire water supply. Its catchments leading to the Jordan River and Lake Kinneret – Israel’s main water source – receive long bouts of heavy rainfall, particularly during the colder months and occasionally during stormy season in the summer.
But the Golan Heights does more than just fill Israel’s many swimming pools. It also provides snow for Israel’s one and only skiing destination, the Mount Hermon Ski Resort. The mountain’s peak reaches 9232 feet above sea level and is Syria’s highest point – an altitude Syrians no longer get to enjoy.
Al-Marsad: Denounces U.S. Recognition of the Occupied Syrian Golan as Israel
Al-Marsad – Arab Human Rights Centre in Golan Heights (“Al-Marsad”) denounces and condemns the United States of America’s (“U.S.”) recognition of the occupied Syrian Golan as part of Israel. The decision sets a dangerous standard that glorifies systematic human rights abuses, legitimizes illegal aggression and occupation, and endangers peace in the Middle East.
Syrians in the occupied Golan face calculated Israeli efforts to restrict their building and land
use, destroy their enterprises, cleanse their Arab culture, manipulate their Syrian identity, and
suffocate their freedom of movement. Syrians have always rejected Israeli control of their land
and will remain steadfast in standing against Israel’s systematic oppression. The U.S.’s decision
will have no impact on this reality. Instead, the decision projects to the world that the U.S. is not
the beacon of liberty and justice it proclaims itself to be; rather, it shows that the U.S. prefers
defending ethnically-driven harassment and unlawful territorial conquest.
Al-Marsad: Rejects New Illegal Settlement Plan for the Occupied Syrian Golan
Al-Marsad – Arab Human Rights Centre in Golan Heights (“Al-Marsad”) is extremely concerned
by reports of a new Israeli government plan to transfer illegal settlers into the occupied Syrian
Golan….it was reported that the Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing has developed
a plan to transfer 250,000 illegal settlers into the occupied Golan by 2048. The plan includes
building 30,000 new housing units, creating 45,000 new jobs, and constructing two new cities.
Today, the occupied Golan is home to 34 illegal settlements and at least 167 illegal settlement
businesses. These illegal settlements and their residents have replaced 340 Syrian villages and
around 130,000 Syrian civilians in the occupied Golan.
Haaretz: Trump’s Golan Tweet Brings U.S. Back to Syria Through the Back Door
At the same time, Trump’s announcement is a slap in the face for Putin and a show of force
against Iran – and against Syrian President Bashar Assad too – because it brings the United
States back into the Syrian arena through the back door. Trump has proved that even if he’s not
involved in the fighting in Syria and won’t be involved in the Russian-led diplomatic process to
end the civil war, he can still strike back in ways that directly harm Syrian sovereignty.
Haaretz: Syria Vows to Recover Golan Heights; Russia: Trump's Recognition Violates UN Resolutions
…a senior foreign ministry source said Syria was determined to recover the area "through all available means." The source added that Trump's statement won't change "the fact that the Golan was and will remain Arab and Syrian."Russia's Foreign Ministry also responded Friday morning, saying that a change in the status of the Golan Heights would be a direct violation of United Nations decisions….Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Trump's statement has brought the region to the edge of
a new crisis.”….An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, meanwhile, said Trump's declaration is illegal and unacceptable. "This illegal and unacceptable recognition does not change the fact that it belongs to Syria.”
Mondoweiss: Trump’s support of Israel’s annexation of the Golan
This is far from the first time that Trump has upended long-held principles of U.S. foreign policy or international law. But with many still awaiting the long-delayed release of details of his “deal of the century” for Arab-Israeli peace, Trump’s open embrace of Israel’s Anschluss of the Golan just about guarantees that this new peace effort will be dead on arrival, if not aborted before birth.
…Independent Syria has long been in the cross-hairs of the many Zionist extremists and neoconservatives who wield such power in US politics. Syria has been subjected to U.S. sanctions continuously since 1979. In the mid-1990s, when key neoconservatives released their landmark document on the Middle East, “A Clean Break”, it argued mainly for two policy changes: a “break” from Washington’s longheld support of the principle of “land for peace”, and the overthrow of central government power in Syria.
NY Times, by the Editorial Board: Trump’s Pointless Provocation on the Golan
President Trump’s proposed reversal of decades of American policy on the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights has more to do with Israeli politics than American interests — or good sense….Mr. Trump fancies himself a tough negotiator, but he has given away this valuable American diplomatic leverage, built up by previous presidents across decades, in exchange for nothing of benefit to the United States….Mr. Trump, facing his own re-election in 2020, no doubt hopes his decision will build support among his base of pro-Israel evangelicals and American Jews. It’s more likely to exacerbate growing divisions among Americans over his administration’s unwavering support for Mr. Netanyahu and its damaging effect on American interests.
Mondoweiss: Trump’s Golan green light paves way to Israel’s annexation of West Bank
When President Donald Trump moved the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem last year,
effectively sabotaging any hope of establishing a viable Palestinian state, he tore up the
international rulebook. Last week, he trampled all over its remaining tattered pages. He did so, of course, via Twitter.
....But, whatever he says, the decision will not bring security for Israel, or regional stability. In fact, it makes a nonsense of Trump’s “deal of the century” – a long-delayed regional peace plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that, according to rumour, may be unveiled soon after the Israeli election. Instead, US recognition will prove a boon for the Israeli right, which has been clamouring to annex vast areas of the West Bank and thereby drive a final nail into the coffin of the two-state solution. Israel’s right can now plausibly argue: “If Trump has consented to our illegal seizure of the Golan, why not also our theft of the West Bank?”
NY Times: Netanyahu Says Golan Heights Move ‘Proves You Can’ Keep Occupied Territory
“There is a very important principle in international life,” Mr. Netanyahu said late Monday after
attending the Golan signing ceremony at the White House. “When you start wars of aggression,
you lose territory, do not come and claim it afterwards. It belongs to us.”
….But legal experts and leaders of many foreign countries said that interpretation did not comport
with international law, which does not recognize sovereignty over territory taken from another
country by force.
Haaretz: Stop Israel's Coming Annexation
Yet the danger lurking in the American recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan is not tied only to this territory. Trump’s signature opens the door to further annexation and unilateral recognition of Israeli sovereignty – over the other territories captured in 1967, mainly the West Bank.
....With all due respect to Trump, Israel is the one that is sliding down a slippery slope, in which it is dismantling with its own hands the two-state solution and replacing it with a one-state solution. Now it is even liable to accelerate this dangerous process. The Israeli right, which champions annexation, will draw inspiration from Trump’s proclamation, and will seek to adopt a similar policy regarding the West Bank.
NY Times: Israel Is on the Brink of Disaster. Trump Just Made Things Worse.
But those signals are also being read by the Israeli right wing as an encouragement to pursue annexation of territory in the West Bank — a far more dangerous step that would present Israel with an unparalleled existential threat to its Jewish and democratic character.
....Reaching that goal, however, would create challenges as harrowing as any Israel has faced since its war of independence. As cataloged by the Israeli group Commanders for Israel’s Security, annexation would cost billions of dollars annually, would create virtually indefensible borders because of the spider web of Israeli-governed territory within the larger West Bank that most supporters of this plan want to annex, provide ammunition to the anti-Israeli Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and destroy Israel’s
foreign relations with a host of countries.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
United Methodists are responding to Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth ,a statement of faith and urgent call to action from Christians in Palestine. UMKR seeks, through nonviolent means and in partnership with Palestinian Christians, freedom, justice and equality for all Palestinians and Israelis.
ABOUT OUR NEWS SOURCES
The articles we include in our lists to 'Read More' – in our newsletters and on our website – are provided as an informational service for our readers, and the views expressed may or may not be shared by UMKR.
Some selections may be repetitive;because some periodicals have paywalls, we provide a variety of sources in the hope that every reader will find some of them accessible, with or without a subscription.
Above: In this recently revised U.S. government map of northern Israel/Palestine, tweeted by U.S. Mideast Envoy Jason Greenblatt, the border between Israel and Lebanon and the border of the West Bank are dotted lines and are identified as Armistice Lines. The entire border with Syria is a solid line and includes the now unmarked occupied territory of the Golan Heights within Israeli territory, in contradiction of international law and consensus.
See the map below for comparison. (Note that "Lake Tiberias" and "Sea of Galilee" are alternate names for the same body of water.)
🔸= Something New or Recently Updated
Above: President Trump displays proclamation recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. Behind him, left to right: Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, who has been working on crafting the Trump administration's long-awaited peace plan for Israel/Palestine, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jason Greenblatt, U.S. Mideast Envoy, and David Friedman, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, a long-time supporter of the Israeli settlements enterprise in occupied Palestinian territory.
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