REACTING to Donald Trump’s recognition of the Golan Heights as Israel’s territory, the Zionist state’s overjoyed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country “never had a better friend”. There is good reason for the Israeli leader’s adulation for the man in the White House; while US administrations over the decades have always gone the extra mile to protect Israel — particularly its blatant human rights abuses and barbaric treatment of Palestinians — perhaps no other American president has been so unabashedly pro Tel Aviv. Whether it is the ‘recognition’ of the disputed holy city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, granting carte blanche to illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, or now recognising the unlawful Israeli occupation of Syrian land, Mr Trump has pulled out all the stops to accommodate Tel Aviv, particularly Mr Netanyahu. And these convenient facts certainly won’t hurt the incumbent Israeli leader, who will be fending off several challenges to himself in the general elections due early next month.

However, while Mr Trump’s actions may help Benjamin Netanyahu electorally and nudge up his own ratings with his evangelical supporters, the American leader is playing with fire by trying to redraw the map of the Middle East in an imperial fashion. The Golan was lost in the disastrous Arab-Israeli War of 1967, along with the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. While Egypt eventually won back the Sinai after a peace treaty with Israel — denounced by the Arab world — the rest of the aforementioned Arab land remains under Tel Aviv’s control. Only Lebanon, through Hezbollah, has managed to liberate Arab land from Israel’s clutches. Donald Trump has rewarded Israel’s illegal occupation and encouraged its never-ending desire to devour Arab land. However, the meekness and acquiescence of the Arabs in front of both Israel and the US over these moves is depressing. Perhaps if major Arab powers — especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia — had sent clear signals that illegal occupation of Arab land was unacceptable, Washington would have thought twice about going ahead with this audacious move. The OIC has been similarly ineffectual in resisting the encroachment of Arab and Muslim land.

The US ‘recognition’ of Israeli control over the occupied Golan may be farcical — Mr Trump has in effect endorsed Israel’s occupation of land that belongs to neither of them. However, the move is bound to have far-reaching implications. Currently, the Middle East is in a state of flux with great uncertainty. If Israel — under American patronage — undertakes any further adventures in the region, the reaction may result in a wider conflict. For example, Jewish extremists have threatened to desecrate Al Aqsa; Israel continues to brutalise the Palestinians; and Tel Aviv has struck both Hezbollah and Iranian targets inside Syria. Should any of these parties choose to respond to Israeli provocations, a new conflagration is bound to erupt in the Middle East.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2019