The Biden administration, unwilling to staunchly back Israel’s security the way the Trump administration did, is waffling over whether Israel should have sovereignty over the critical Golan Heights, which loom high over northern Israel and in the past served as a safe haven for Arabs to attack the Jewish state.
Asked by The Washington Free Beacon whether the Golan Heights, which were taken by Israel in the Six-Day-war and later annexed as part of Israel, belonged to Israel, a State Department official said the territory was not part of any state and control of the area was dependent on the shifting dynamics of the region, The Free Beacon reported.
It’s no surprise that unlike the Trump administration, which declared the Heights to be part of Israel in 2019, the Biden administration would not wholly support Israel; in February, asked if his State Department would maintain the Trump administration’s position, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN, “As a practical matter, the control of the Golan in that situation I think remains of real importance to Israel’s security. Legal questions are something else and over time if the situation were to change in Syria, that’s something we look at, but we are nowhere near that.”
“The secretary was clear that, as a practical matter, the Golan is very important to Israel’s security. As long as [Bashar al-Assad] is in power in Syria, as long as Iran is present in Syria, militia groups backed by Iran, the Assad regime itself—all of these pose a significant security threat to Israel, and as a practical matter, the control of the Golan remains of real importance to Israel’s security,” a State Department official told the Free Beacon.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ripped the Biden administration, telling the Free Beacon, “The Golan Heights are not occupied by Israel, they are a part of it. The Israelis have a right to it as sovereign land. To suggest that these lands should be returned to Syria, even if conditioned on changes in the Syrian regime, is inconsistent with both Israeli security and the international law.”
Pompeo added that the State Department’s “suggestion that if Assad falls and the Iranians leave Syria, the Golan Heights should be given to Syria misreads history and misreads the eternal security needs of the state of Israel.”
In May, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the Israeli Sovereignty Reassurance Act of 2021 (ISRA), which would prohibit the State Department from reversing the U.S. recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Gallagher said at the time, “The Golan Heights provide Israel with defensible borders and serve as a key buffer between Israel and the chaos in Syria. At a time when Israel — our most important ally in the Middle East — is literally under attack, we should do everything in our power to ensure they can defend themselves. Ensuring we continue to recognize their sovereignty over the Golan Heights is the most basic way we can do so.”
Gallagher told the Free Beacon, “These comments [from the State Department] should serve as a call to action. It’s time to pass legislation I’ve introduced with Senator [Ted] Cruz [(R., Texas)] that ensures that the U.S. will continue to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, regardless of who is in the White House.”
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) said, “Secretary Blinken and the Biden Administration need to stop beating around the bush, and unambiguously commit to maintain recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights permanently.”
David Milstein, the former special assistant to the U.S. ambassador to Israel under Trump, called an attempt to reverse the Trump administration’s decision on the Golan Heights was “an unconscionable betrayal of our close ally Israel. Our allies depend upon the United States keeping its commitments. But now Secretary Blinken has re-injected the dangerous and delusional idea the U.S. could support pressuring Israel to give up the Golan Heights in the future.”
He added, “In one of the most dangerous regions that can go from bad to worse in an instant, the Golan Heights is crucial for Israel’s security, providing a strategically necessary defensible border to help Israel counter threats to its north. This is why there is clear support across Israel’s political spectrum for Israel forever maintaining sovereignty over the Golan Heights.”