Last edited Thu Mar 28, 2019, 10:36 AM - Edit history (1)
Given Syria's current state, there is no international call to return the Golan Heights to Syria. Therefore, nothing really changes on the ground. Haartez (a left leaning Israeli which has an English language edition) noted that before the announcement the US had stopped referring to it as Israeli occupied Golan Heights to Israeli controlled Golan Heights and without that being pointed out, I totally missed this subtle difference.
At this point, the EU and the Arab states have not followed Trump's example.
As noted in another Haaretz article is that like moving the embassy, this was something given to Israel asking nothing in return. This eliminations some of the "chips" that could have been used in getting everyone to agree to any Israeli/Palestinian peace deal. As with the growth of settlements and other Netanyahu actions are having the impact of completely closely out any possibility of a two state solution. ( At this point, the vast majority of American Jews adamantly favor a two state solution -- while Israel has moved to the right and support for that has fallen .. "at least now" (and the settlements continue to take more land). )
Netanyahu is currently running with a more right wing coalition than he currently has, but in spite of that and in spite of the many corruption cases against him, he STILL may be the one seen as having the best chance to form a government - so he might be asked to do so by the Israeli President. (This may happen even if the new Gantz party gets more votes - as happened in 2009 when Tzipi Livni's party got one more seat than Netanyahu's party. )
I greatly fear that Netanyahu, supported by Trump, might take advantage of the next year and a half to make unilateral decisions that create a "greater Israel" annexing more land -- but no necessarily giving full rights as citizens to the Palestinians currently on that land. Obviously, that will be condemned by the UN, but it is hard to see that stopping it from happening. (Trump seems to be following Netanyahu's plan of allying with the Sunni nations against Iran -- betting that this is more important to them than the Palestinians' plight.)
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