Haley: U.S. to oppose UNGA call for Israel to return Golan Heights to Syria
An old military vehicle on the Israeli side of the border with Syria, near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heigh
Tovah Lazaroff reports in the Jerusalem Post:
The United States is expected to reject a United Nations General Assembly resolution that calls on Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said that in past years the US has abstained when this cyclical resolution comes for a vote. “However, given the resolution’s anti-Israel bias, as well as the militarization of the Syrian Golan border, and a worsening humanitarian crisis, this year the United States has decided to vote no on the resolution,” Haley said.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 war and has since annexed it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the Trump Administration to recognize that the Golan Heights is part of sovereign Israel.
President Donald Trump has not publicly responded to that request by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has told the media he expects that the Golan Heights would remain in Israeli hands forever.
Late Thursday night, Haley said, “The United States will no longer abstain when the United Nations engages in its useless annual vote on the Golan Heights. If this resolution ever made sense, it surely does not today…. The resolution is plainly biased against Israel. Further, the atrocities the Syrian regime continues to commit prove its lack of fitness to govern anyone.”