Golan heights sovereignty

A roundup of the last two weeks.

Today, despite the millions of Jews who have returned to Israel thanks to the proclamations of Lord Balfour and President Truman, there is one heartbreaking vestige of our ancient captivity.

"No one could imagine that a person in America comes and gives land of a nation to another occupying country... Such action is unprecedented," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said.

A picture of the protest in Homs shows a protester carrying a banner saying "AlJawlan is Syrian. It is apart [sic] of Syria. And it will remain Syrian."

This recognition, which really should have come nearly 40 years ago, is supported by a consensus of nearly the entire political spectrum in Israel.

Some 22,000 Druze, an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam, live in the Israeli Golan, and many still have relatives on the Syrian side of the fortified boundary.

In Majdal Shams, older residents remember being part of Syria before Israel captured most of the heights in the 1967 Middle East war, occupying and later annexing it in 1981.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted, saying that "when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights."

One reason that the Golan issue does not echo in the Middle East is because the Syrian regime is not well-liked.

U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights is “a dream come true,” Blue and White co-leader Yair Lapid said.