Pompeo in first Golan visit: Israel has right to defend its sovereignty
The US did not consider Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan Heights as legitimate until US President Donald Trump reversed the policy in March 2019.
By LAHAV HARKOVFences are seen on the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights March 25, 2019.(photo credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid the first-ever visit by a US secretary of state to the Golan Heights on Thursday.Standing on Mount Bental, where the borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria intersect, Pompeo said he chose to go to there to “tell the world that the US has it right, that Israel has it right, that each nation has the right to defend its sovereignty.“We will make sure Israel has what it needs to do just that,” he added. “We will honor the right to defend your people.”Israel extended its law to the Golan Heights in 1981, but the US only recognized it as part of sovereign Israel in 2019 under US President Donald Trump.The secretary of state said that, from his vantage point atop the mountain, “you cannot stand here and stare out across the border and deny the thing President Trump recognized and other presidents refused to do, that this is part of Israel – and a central part of Israel.”Pompeo mocked the members of “the salons in Europe and elites in the US” who wanted Israel to concede the Golan to Syria.“Imagine with [Syrian President Bashar] Assad in charge of this place, the risk to Israel and the people of Israel,” he said.Before his visit to Israel this week, Pompeo requested from the Foreign Ministry to hear about the battles in the Yom Kippur War that took place in the Golan, which he said he had learned about as a US Army cadet.Yom Kippur War hero Avigdor Kahalani, recounted the events of the Battle of the Valley of Tears for Pompeo.Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said Pompeo “insisted on coming here firsthand and hear the briefings from the military commanders and hear from our legendary hero Kahalani.”Ashkenazi thanked Pompeo for the US recognizing Israel sovereignty in the Golan.Pompeo and his wife visited the City of David in Jerusalem's Old City on Thursday, as well as Qasr el-Yahud in the Jordan Valley, the site of Jesus' baptism and where the Jewish people crossed the Jordan River into Israel 40 years after the Exodus from Egypt.
