US President Donald Trump’s recognition of the disputed Golan Heights as Israeli territory is “an act of brigandry,” former Labour Party MP George Galloway told RT. Trump’s declaration has been condemned in the Arab world.

(Ed: Israel defeated the Syrian Arab Army on the battlefield to capture the Golan Heights in the last century. Israel troops have been in possession of the Golan Heights for many decades. The idea of conquest is very familiar to the Arab world. Does George Galloway oppose all military actions and the claiming of victory after one side is defeated and flees the battlefield? Hardly. )

Trump on Monday signed a declaration recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War – a move that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “historic justice” and a “diplomatic victory.” This is despite the UN declaring Israel’s occupation of the heights “null and void,” and the Arab League calling it “completely beyond international law.”

(Ed: Opponents of Israel and the US seem to think they have some kind of ‘trump card’ when they wave around accusations and documentation of ‘war crimes’ and breaking ‘international law.’ In the real world ‘international law’ is enforced by the US and allies. International law is broken around the world, everyday. War crimes happen all the time. Yet the radical liberals in the West think they have solved the puzzle when they discover war crimes that violate international law.)

Galloway called Trump’s declaration “an act of brigandry which will send a clear message to the entire world that the US cares nothing for international law, for treaties, just force.”

(Ed: The quote about an act of brigandry is bombast from a simpleton. Yet this ‘clever’ phrase is repeated three times: first in the headline, then in the first paragraph, and finally in a quote that is supposed to be the punchline. Anyone who follows the news and has an instinct for fairness would have concluded long ago that the US enforces ‘international law’ when the enforcement serves the US interest. So to claim that the entire world is “Shocked! Shocked!’ at the US ignoring laws when it wants to is news to who exactly? )

Crucially to Israel, the Golan Heights is one of only three sources of freshwater feeding the arid Jewish state. Perhaps more crucially to Israeli and American interests, the region also sits on top of sizable oil reserves, discovered in 2015. US oil company Genie, through its Israeli subsidiary, was given exclusive exploration rights to drill the occupied territory, and until now has been held up by the small matter of the land being illegally occupied under international law.

“The US will underwrite any Israeli crime as long as its imperial interests in the Arab world are furthered,” Galloway told RT. “The oil reserves in the Golan are already being stolen in absolute violation of international law but for the further enrichment of western businessmen.”

(Ed: Should the international borders of every country in the world be rolled back to the time before the 1940’s when Israel was created? Should Poland give the vast tracts of land that where taken from defeated Germany in the 1940’s? Should China give back Manchuria to the Japanese and allow the return of 2,000,000 Japanese immigrants to that area? Should Greece return parts of Bulgaria taken in the past?)

Still, the Golan Heights is home to some 27,000 Syrians, who are unlikely to be happy with the Trump administration’s decision. “The Golan will always be Syrian, however, and no caprice of a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ US president can change that,” Galloway said.

(Ed: What exactly is Syria? The country was carved out of a province of the Ottoman Empire a hundred years ago and has a population of Christians and Sunni, and Shia, and can hardly be called a country. The idea of ‘Arab Land’ or Palestinian Land, or Syrian Land, only seems to apply to followers of Islam. Muslim immigrants to Germany or Sweden are never described as taking ‘German Land’ or ‘Swedish Land’ or even European Land. According to the implied logic – Muslims can move anywhere in the world, but Arab Islamic land must be respected and European colonists are not welcome. )

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called Trump’s decision a “flagrant attack” on Syrian sovereignty, a “slap in the face” for the international community and another step in a “conspiracy” to “liquidate the Palestinian issue.”

(ED: Israel regularly bombs Syria to help Al Qaeda types and the Syrian Arab Army does not respond with an attack on Israeli Army forces. The US openly occupies parts of Syria and also helps the Al Qaeda types who are fighting the Syrian government. But suddenly a declaration of what has been a fact for almost fifty years is a “slap in the face?” The US and Israel bomb Syria whenever they want. Isn’t that a “slap in the face?”

The Palestinians have been pursuing a dead-end Islamic strategy for fifty years with just about nothing to show for their efforts. The entire Palestinian population is effectively on welfare and claims to be ‘refugees’ three and four generations after leaving their great-grandparents homes in Israel. There are about fifty Muslim countries in the world, many of them underpopulated. Yet most Arab and Muslim immigrants do not want to go to Islamic countries and live on “Arab Land.” Muslim immigrants want to live on welfare in a European country on “somebody else’s land.”

Does anyone remember the Palestinians Three Days of Rage after the US ‘violated international law’ by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city? Burning tires and throwing rocks….just like almost every other day. )

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