Re: Trump has Liberated Israel

In a recent article in the New York Times titled “Trump Has Liberated Israel”, Mr. Rosner made some strange arguments in support of Trump’s decision to recognize the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights.

Officially a part Syria, Israel captured the six-hundred square mile territory in the 1967 Six-Day War and moved to officially annex it in 1981. Mr. Rosner argues that, among other things, the upheaval and confusion caused by the civil war in Syria means that Israel had no choice but to give up on the idea of handing back the territory. Strangely enough, he does not consider the option of waiting until things in Syria settle down. Though he does hope that a Syrian leader will rise on day to ignore the illegal annexation and pursue peace with Israel regardless of seizure.

How the logic regarding the annexation of the Golan Heights relates to the application of international law is not addressed by Mr. Rosner either. If an area’s ‘strategic and historic’ position is all the justification that a country needs to annex territory, then China may do the same for its vast claims in the South China Sea, Russia might claim the same for Crimea, those territories are ‘strategic and historic’ after all. What prevents any country from making the same argument regarding any territory? Mr. Rosner fails to address any of this beyond the simple argument that the international community should accept the move for all the other territories occupied during the Six-Day War, territories that include the West Bank.

These types of actions cannot simply be justified with history, strategy, and the approval of the US president, a president who is not known for his adherence to what is lawful, right, or moral.