This week, President Trump announced that the time had come for the US to recognise Tel Aviv's claim to the Golan Heights following over 50 years of illegal occupation of the Syrian region by Israel following the 1967 Six Day War. Sputnik spoke with American writer Dr. E. Michael Jones to get a sense of what drove Trump to make his decision.

Sputnik: What is your impression of the Golan Heights announcement, and the accompanying 'Deal of the Century' — this mysterious deal mentioned by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that no one seems to know anything about?

E. Michael Jones: In his announcement [on the Golan Heights] with Mike Pompeo, Benjamin Netanyahu said this proves that America stands by Israel. This is on YouTube, it has 13,000 views, and if you want to know whether America stands by Israel, just start to read the comments. None of the comments are in favour of Israel. They are all [conveying the sentiment] that 'now we have the United States of Israel', 'America is selling out' and so on and so forth. So this is not the case. The American people are indifferent, and when they're not indifferent, they're hostile to the whole thing.

The question is: why is this happening now? The real reason is that you have two drowning men holding on to each other in the middle of a very big storm. The two drowning men here are Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is on the verge of being indicted. He desperately needs some type of coup to get out of that mess. Donald Trump is in the same situation in the United States. Not exactly facing indictment, but, ever since he got into office, an attempt by the Deep State to get him removed from office, or at least tame him and get him doing what the Deep State wanted.

This is not why he was elected. I was there in South Bend, Indiana when 5,000 people showed up and rallied for Trump because they realised at this point that they had two parties that represented the interests of the oligarchs, and no party that represents the interests of the American people. One of the main components of oligarchic rule is Jewish hegemony over the political system. Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota brought this up – she's a Muslim, a Somali, and everybody cried 'how could she say this?' Well, she said it because everybody knows it's true. So right now you have this huge dichotomy between the alternative media, YouTube, the comments there, and the mainstream media which is simply going along with the plan, which led to Donald Trump becoming president.

Sputnik: Do you think that Washington's support of Netanyahu prior to the upcoming elections amounts to interference in Israel's internal affairs?

E. Michael Jones: [Laughs] This is a joke! Are you kidding me?! Of course they mutually interfere with each other's elections. I'd rather talk about the reverse of it…Does Israel interfere with the American election? Of course Israel does. Netanyahu shows up here, in spite of the fact that Obama did not want him to come here, campaigns against the [Iran] nuclear agreement, gets 25 standing ovations, and this isn't interference in the election? This is a joke; they control the elections. They don't interfere, they control the elections.

Sputnik: The US recognition of the Golan Heights has been condemned by the international community. Many politicians worldwide have been saying that the US actions violate international laws. What's your opinion on the line that the administration is taking?

E. Michael Jones: Every time Donald Trump does something like this, he takes one more step toward destroying NATO. The most vehement reaction against this came from Erdogan in Turkey, who said this cannot be tolerated. Erdogan is in NATO. Erdogan has now bought Russian missiles, the United States is now not going to send its F-35s [to Turkey]. It is only a formality to say that Turkey is in NATO. Once you buy these missiles, that means you're basically not inter-operational, and that means you're out, and this has only accelerated the alienation of Turkey from NATO.

It has also accelerated Germany's move away from NATO.

All these politicians do is focus on short-term goals. They play checkers while the rest of the world is playing chess. They don't understand the long-term implications of what they're doing. This is destroying the American Empire step by step, because what it's doing is saying America holds the rule of law in complete contempt, and that we will do anything for these short-term gains. The long-term result of this is going to be the collapse of NATO and the collapse of European-American cooperation.

Sputnik: What is being reported about this in the US? Is it getting a lot of press coverage?

E. Michael Jones: It's getting minimal press coverage. Nobody knows what to say…If you look at the New York Times editorial today, it's very muted, they really don't know what to say, because they're caught in a bind. They are flaming, flagrant supporters of Israel, but they are embarrassed by the heavy-handedness of moves like this, because it removes any type of philosophical or moral justification for what they're doing, and that embarrasses people at the New York Times.

And I think that is the reaction of the press in general. It's embarrassing to have the president and senators groveling for the support of a guy who couldn't get elected in Israel. And it's embarrassing to suddenly say 'we don't care whether it's the rule of law or not; we don't care about that; we're just going to do it.' That's not a recipe for success over the long term, and I think the press in general is embarrassed, and therefore it doesn't know what to say.

E. Michael Jones: The Security Council, Russia and China are going to have to step up to the plate and say 'We believe in the rule of law. The United Nations is here to reinforce the rule of law. We are reaffirming what we said about the illegal seizure of Golan in 1967, we are not going to change our position.' That's what they have to say; someone has to stand up for the rule of law, and it looks like it's going to have to be Russia, at this point.

Sputnik: Are you at all optimistic about something being done to change course?

E. Michael Jones: This is a semantic issue. What we're talking about is the United States State Department changing its vocabulary. This really doesn't change the fact of what's happened, and the significant fact here is that Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia lost the war in Syria. They lost that war…These facts on the ground do not change simply by a change in vocabulary, and that's something that they're going to have to deal with. That's the reality. This move is not going to change those facts at all.

The fact that they lost the war in Syria means that Israel is in a more precarious situation than before they started the war. If you look over the long view, what is the net result of let's say the invasion of Iraq, which violated the conscience of virtually every American? It created Iran as a regional power. So I think you have to look at this from a bigger perspective. Hegel called it the 'cunning of reason' –there's a force at work here in human history that defies the intentions of politicians like Netanyahu and Trump.

Listen to Dr. Jones' complete interview with Sputnik here:

Dr. E. Michael Jones is a prolific writer, media commentator and editor of Culture Wars magazine, a monthly US-based publication dedicated to political, economic and religious issues. He is also the author of over a dozen works on topics including the history of the Catholic Church, capitalism, the sexual revolution, and other social issues.

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.