Moscow rejects notion of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan

Two days after Netanyahu said Putin understands the territory’s importance for Israel, Russian FM says any change of status would violate UN resolution

By RAPHAEL AHREN , TOI

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a joint news conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem in Moscow, Russia, August 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a joint news conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem in Moscow, Russia, August 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday indicated that his country will not agree to any change of status for the Golan Heights, which Moscow, along with the large majority of the international community, considers occupied Syrian territory.

His comments followed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call on the international community Monday to recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, saying Russian President Vladimir Putin appreciates how important the strategic plateau is for Israel.

“The status of the Golan Heights is determined by the resolutions of the UN Security Council,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow. “Changing this status bypassing the Security Council, from my perspective, would be a direct violation of these resolutions.”

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War, and formally annexed the territory in 1981. UN Security Council Resolution 497 of that year declared that Israel’s annexation of the “occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect.” It passed unanimously.

During a visit to a synagogue at the Ein Keshatot archaeological site on the Golan Heights, Netanyahu vowed never to retreat from the area.

“Israel on the Golan Heights is a guarantee of stability in the surrounding area,” he said, noting Iran’s efforts to establish itself military close to Israel’s border with Syria.

“Israel on the Golan Heights is a solid reality based on ancient rights. Israel on the Golan Heights is a fact that the international community must recognize and as long as it is up to me the Golan Heights will always remain under Israeli sovereignty because otherwise we would have Iran and Hezbollah on the shores of the Sea of Galilee,” he added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior IDF officers tour the northern border on the Golan Heights, on July 25, 2017. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

Netanyahu said he would discuss Iran’s malign influence in the region during his upcoming meeting with the Russian president.

“I know that President Putin understands my commitment to the security of Israel and I know that he also understands the importance that I ascribe to the Golan Heights, that we all ascribe to the Golan Heights and to the heritage of Israel.”

Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights is widely accepted among Jewish Israelis. Opposition MK Yair Lapid, for instance, praised the prime minister for his comments, saying that he will fully back any government initiative to secure international support for Israel’s annexation of the territory.

Relations between Israel and Russia have been suffering recently due to the accidental Syrian downing of a Russian plane during an Israeli airstrike in Syria. Fifteen Russians were killed in the September 17 incident, which Moscow blamed on Israel, accusing its pilots of using the larger Russian plane as cover.

Israel disputes the Russian findings and says its jets were back in Israeli airspace when the plane was downed.

In response, Moscow announced new measures to protect its military in Syria, and sent Damascus S-300 air defense systems.

October 10, 2018 | 21 Comments »

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21 Comments / 21 Comments

  1. @ Sebastien Zorn:
    Your presentation is a one sided version of Crimea annexation slightly reads like it is out of RT. Just for a little balance without deeply getting into the whole illegal capture of another countries territory by Russia and annexation.

    Many Crimean Tatars remain loyal to Ukraine, and some have faced prosecution as a result. The new political climate means thousands of Crimeans have had to flee. The exiles aren’t just Tatars but ethnic Russians like human rights activist Olga Skripnik, who now lives in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

    https://www.npr.org/2018/03/06/591266939/how-people-in-crimea-view-the-union-with-russia

  2. @ Michael S:
    Crimea, which is 60 percent Russian, was never fully a part of the Ukraine. The closest analogy is Texas. When Obama and the EU enabled the coup which overthrew the Ukraine’s pro-Russian elected government, which then proceeded to tear up the constitution which gave Crimea autonomy and passed a law that all business had to be conducted in Ukrainian, the Crimeans conducted a referendum, seceded and took up arms. Russia always had bases there as well. This Ukrainian government has been renaming streets for the mass murderers of Jews, orienting towards the EU and inviting back the descendants of the Tatar Muslims, Stalin expelled for collaborating with Nazi Germany. Among them, are many Islamist elements including terrorists. It is the height of absurdity to attribute Ukrainian right to self-determination to Crimea which never belonged to it, at all, before Kruschev arbitrarily assigned it from Russia to the Ukraine. In 1990, Crimea was given a choice and chose to federate with the right to secede because of its location, with the Ukraine. Crimea requested to rejoin Russia, to which it had formerly belonged. The sanctions over that are simply wrong though that’s no reason not to use them as leverage in the world of realpolitik.

  3. @ Ted Belman:
    Said:

    Assad is now aligned with Israel, Russia is still very friendly with Israel

    Really Assad is aligned with Israel? No WAY! Russian’s talking nice sometimes but what matters is they are arming the Iranians and making life difficult to control security. They view Israel as the ally of the USA (correctly). Which does not make them our friend. The S-300s can shoot down planes coming out of or going to Ben Gurion.

    NewsFlash Your last statement was not accurate remotely to put it nicely! Only thing correct was Israel is not giving up the Golan, the rest was flat wrong!

  4. Here’s a newsflash.

    Assad is now aligned with Israel, Russia is still very friendly with Israel and she is just posturing, Israel will never give up the Golan.

  5. @ Michael S:

    Michael not a single whit of your very interesting conversation has any effect on my stated opinions. Your comments on China are mostly-not all- about China’s INTERNAL economic convulsions, which are not directed to International Relations.

    Whilst the fact that you have family in China and your info is “first hand”. ,,,,,it is merely anecdotal as far as evidence is concerned, and has the same relevance as other anecdotal information throughout history. (for instance De Commines Memoires which I read over now and again for their enthralling info of a particular period that I have a life-long interest in, it builds castles in the air…-yet it is NOT evidence, merely indicative) .

    I’ll give you a parallel… You know that I was born and grew up in Ireland. I was nearly 28 when I left, so had a good grounding on the travails of the Jews and myself personally, who, being a well known local sports figure mixed more with the Goyim than others. So I was faced with far more Jew Hate than they, who were more communally involved.

    For them…it was life as usual…for ME ….It was career changing and soul destroying. I have never recovered from it. Yet, (and this bears on your first-hand info re China) I have the rest of my personal family still living there, an older sister, her children some grandchildren and great-grandchildren etc. (some are n Israel) They move around in their own circles, and rarely if ever, find any Jew Hate against THEM, have never even mentioned it, which they would, if it occurred….

    Yet, we see every day something new issuing from Ireland, a new attack on Jews and the Jewish State, so that Ireland has well earned the name of being the most Anti-Semitic country in the EU….in fact we’d find it hard, to find any worse in the whole world, excluding the Muslim countries.

  6. @ Edgar G.:

    My info on China, of course, is firsthand — I have family there.

    President Xi is a committed Communist and a committed Atheist; and his country is facing increasing social and economic pressure. Part of this pressure, such as the recent tariffs, involve actions by President Trump; but the problems of American origin are only transitory in nature: We run up the tariffs, and China counter-tariffs; but China will run out of options much sooner than we do, so Xi will soon have to come to the bargaining table or face economic ruin.

    The real danger of Xi’s policies is not their affect on us, nor on the world in general. Xi’s underlying problem is his Communist mentality, his belief that the State must solve China’s problems because there is no God to help. Reality, however, is on God’s side: the more we leave things in His hands, trusting in His infinite wisdom in designing every one of us, the better the economy and everything else functions. When we try to sit in God’s place, on the other hand, as the State does in a Communist system, we ultimately make decisions that work against our welfare. Every time the Chinese economy stalls, therefore, Xi tightens government control and things get worse. When his position as leader becomes insecure, he purges talented people and surrounds himself with yes-men. Any sensible person, seeing objectively what is going on, knows that China is headed for a downward spiral.

    None of this makes China our “enemy”. China’s biggest enemy is itself; and the same goes for the US, the UK, the EU and everyone else. Sometimes, when countries like the US and China run into trouble, their leaders are tempted to look for a scapegoat. The Chinese are on the short list of American scapegoats, and we are on their short list.

    Concerning the South China Sea, let me say this. Someone once said that for a country that depends on international trade, every country with a seacoast is its neighbor. Using this philosophy, the major trading partners of the West — North America, Europe, ANZ and NE Asia — have banded together and, now under US leadership, devoted their considerable resources to controlling the high seas. China is not part of this “Bund”; but it too has become dependent on international trade. It does not trust that US hegemony will always act in its interest, so it is trying to forge its own way to control sea routes with its “One Road” policy — a policy that geographically is literally at cross-purposes with the Western system. This conflict ultimately needs to be resolved, or there will be war. At the moment, however, we are not at war; and things are at an impasse.

    You know that my own understanding of how all this will resolve itself has been prophesied in Zechariah 14.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Greenhouse_George_Early_Fireball.ogv/250px–Greenhouse_George_Early_Fireball.ogv.jpg

  7. @ Michael S:

    I note all that you say and it’s interesting to revisit the info, as I lived through all of it and read all the major newspapers as well as getting Time Magazine weekly for many years. Newsweek too.

    But your idea of an enemy is not mine. They are absolutely enemies, intensely economic enemies, and if they had the power, would be at our throats in a moment. They have been moving in all around the China Seas, and Japan, building artificial Islands and claiming thereby extra sea surroundings. They are threatening Japan militarily so that Japan changed it’s Constitution and has been rearming for a few years now.

    It can’t be otherwise with extreme Communist Dictatorships, where people disappear without trace never to be seen again….and don’t forget Tibet…;; I don’t know why you have the idea it could,be otherwise. They have been stiffening Nth.Korea to ignore the US demand to denuclearize and much much more. I hope now that you see why I call them real enemies in fact as in deeds.

  8. @ Bear Klein:
    Hi, Bear. You said, “I believe they have brought in Iranians to man the S-300s”

    That is what DEBKA says, for what it’s worth. If this is true, we can expect those sites to be singled out by Israel for attack. The latter have experience dealing with S-300s, having practiced in the Balkans. Destroying them will provide excellent training for IDF pilots.

  9. @ Edgar G.:
    Hi, Edgar. You said,

    “The Chinese are actually more than “competitors” they are real enemies, make no mistake about that.”

    It’s probably not wise to count “enemies”, until actual shooting starts. In the early 1800s, it looked for a while as though we would go to war against France; but then we fought Britain instead. When World War II broke out, the Soviets were Britain’s enemies; but by the time the US entered the war, they were her allies.

    At this writing, we still have high level diplomatic relations with both Russia and China. Those with whom we do not have these relations are:

    Iran, North Korea, Syria and Bhutan. Taiwan is in an unusual situation: We do not recognize them as a country (in which case, we favor Communist China over them), yet we are bound to them by a defense treaty.

    In the late 1960s, it was illegal for Americans to travel to China, North Korea, Cuba and Albania. That is no longer the case.

    Today, Americans are banned only from traveling to North Korea, though we have restricted travel to Afghanistan, Algeria, Bhutan, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, PR China, DR Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Nauru, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen. Travel to Hong Kong and Macau, however, which are part of China, is visa-free.

    Note that we have strong alliances with some of the above, notably Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The US President calls the leader of North Korea his “friend”, whom he “admires”. We have competitors everywhere; but as of yet, few active enemies.

    Bhutan is at odds with the US, because we disapprove of their expelling illegal immigrants. That’s politics, for you!

  10. @ Michael S:
    I believe they have brought in Iranians to man the S-300s as they were already trained on the systems in Iran. The learning curve for the Syrians would be too long.

  11. @ Bear Klein:
    Hi, Bear

    I agree, that the “civil war” aspect of the Ukrainian conflict is overplayed by the Russians (and underplayed by the US), which it also was in Vietnam.

    For the Vietnamese, it was one long war, essentially from 1941 (when the Vietminh were established in Japanese-occupied French Indochina) until 1975 (when Saigon was overrun by mostly North Vietnamese troops). At first, Vietnamese fought the Japanese, then the French, then each other, then the Americans and allies. In 1954, Vietnam was divided, pending a referrendum for unification in 1956. The southern zone refused the referrendum, and the Civil War ensued, replete with foreign intervention on both sides.

    In the Ukraine, Crimea seceeded and voted for unification with Russia; then the Donbass Basin erupted into warfare between pro-Russian forces, representing the previous, legitimately and crookedly elected, on the one side, and the pro-Western forces, illegitimately and crookedly installed in a coup.

    The Russians have suffered considerable losses in Syria, with Russian and Chechen mercenaries taking hits everywhere, on all sides. The Turks shot down one of their fighter jets a few years ago; and this year, Syrian gunners’ fire against Israeli jets and missiles mysteriously downed a Russian spy plane. If the Russians man the S-300 batteries they are gifting to Syria, as seems probable, they may soon feel the direct wrath of Israeli airstrikes. Syria may yet become a Vietnam-like quagmire for the Russians.

  12. @ Michael S:
    Hi

    Yep, I remember VietNam and even then was not for the USA being involved in civil wars. Trump is doing better by giving the Ukrainians lethal missiles. Obama sent them food rations probably spam to defend themselves.

    I do not agree it is a civil war (it has some elements of that yes). Russia has sent in fighters and badly disguised them as local fighters or contractors. They tried to dislodge the USA & Kurds from Eastern Syria by sending the Wagner Group (Russian mercenaries) plus Hezis a few months ago. They were cut completely cut down to size by the Kurds, F22s, and US artillery.

  13. Hello, Bear. You said,

    “So when people who want to be free and stay free who were slaves in the USSR want to join NATO you take the side of Russia? Did I understand that correctly?”

    No, you did not understand that correctly. I’m not taking sides with Russia. Ukraine is effectively in the middle of a civil war, with Russian-speaking Ukrainians (the majority, actually) fighting against nationalists. I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember, but the US was once involved in another civil war, in Vietnam. We lost that one. If we try to get involved in this one, we will lose it as well; because Russian forces vastly outnumber ours in that theater. I am looking at the situation objectively, rationally, and with US interests in mind. You continued,

    “So when Poland joins NATO and its soldiers now fight terrorists alongside US soldiers you prefer they do what?”

    They already have joined NATO. I prefer that they honor their commitments, which they do. You went on,

    “Putin has said the greatest disaster of the 20th Century was the breakup of the USSR. I am not so sure the countries who left the USSR and now are free would agree.”

    Putin is not a Ukrainian or Estonian; he is a Russian. The breakup of the USSR was a disaster for Russia. Whether others agree with him or not, I think it is completely understandable for him to think and say what he does. You went on,

    “Maybe I did not understanding you, are you supporting stopping the Russians in their tracks or against it?”

    I support President Trump’s policies toward Russia. As I said, the Russians have a local military advantage, in the event of an all-out war. POTUS has therefore wisely refrained from pushing things to that point. If Russia were to unilaterally escalate, and invade more of the Ukraine. we would take advantage of the native anti-Russian sentiment there (which is considerable in the west of the country), massively reinforce our NATO allies such as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, supply Ukrainian guerilla forces with advanced weapons, tighten sanctions on Russia and massively increase spending on defense projects the Russians hate — such as encircling them with nuclear weapons. We would do that. if our own opposition, Democrat and Republican, do not work to thwart these measures. If they do, all bets are off.

    Putin is, above all, an inteligent and practical man; so I doubt he would want to push things into the situation I just described. He is definitely fighting us, but it isn’t on the battlefields in the Ukraine, where we could “stop him in his tracks”. If he wants to massively gain ground at our expense, his best tack is probably to clandestinely promote civil war in the US and confusion in Europe. Of course, he has been doing this; but in this case, he is not our biggest enemy: our biggest enemy is ourselves.

  14. I see that nobody on this site has commented on the fact that last week, dozens of Druze likely representing hundreds, or thousands, were waving signs of support at the Golan border for Assad and shouting that they loved Syria and were Syrians themselves etc.

    It has always in past history been a hotbed of support for Assad. If any incursion occurs from the Golan it will the those Druze who facilitate it.. I read some years ago that there was regular cross border traffic with Druze on both sides., played down, and not openly publicized. It bothers me……especially since Jews are outnumbered in the Golan district.

  15. @ Michael S:
    So when people who want to be free and stay free who were slaves in the USSR want to join NATO you take the side of Russia? Did I understand that correctly?

    So when Poland joins NATO and its soldiers now fight terrorists alongside US soldiers you prefer they do what?

    Putin has said the greatest disaster of the 20th Century was the breakup of the USSR. I am not so sure the countries who left the USSR and now are free would agree.

    Maybe I did not understanding you, are you supporting stopping the Russians in their tracks or against it?

    The Russian expanded power in Syria is a problem to Israel, which has possibilities that are very dangerous to Israel. Israel in the past fought Cuban pilots over the skies of Syria and Russian pilots over the Sinai in the 70s

  16. @ Bear Klein:
    Hi, Bear
    I agree with everything you said, except about the extent of Russia’s ambitions.

    1. Russia is concerned about encroachment by NATO and the EU in recent years, into lands that used to be part of the Soviet Union. They have tried to draw the line in the Ukraine and Georgia. Concerning the Middle East, they have dug in their heels in Syria, and made overtures to other countries such as Egypt. Remember that before the Yom Kippur War, the Russians essentially controlled Syria, Iraq, the PLO, Egypt, Lybia and other ME and African countries, Plus N. Vietnam, and Cuba; and they had an even closer relationship with India than they have today. Russia has an economy the size of South Korea, but they are trying to support a military the size of China’s. Unless Trump decides to copy Obama and play dead, Russia’s territorial ambitions are very limited.

    2. The Chinese are definitely strong economic competitors of the US, and they are at work trying to build a “soft power” network to rival the West. Militarily, they are many years behind us; and even economically, we may surpass their rate of growth. if our Steamroller President keeps up the momentum. China has serious economic problems, which ultimately point to the inefficient central control of the Communist Party. President Xi has been doubling down on the failures of Communism in recent years, trying to deal with problems that arise; and every time he does that, China loses. A related problem to central control, is the lack of freedom in China that leads to a famine of imagination and innovation.

    3. I mentioned our “UN” enemies, such as Iran and North Korea, because the international power contest is not just being fought in military conflicts. Those two mentioned dictatorships have grabbed headlines over the years, because of their nuclear weapons programs; but their “soft power” is their main success: Even though they are economically insignificant coutries, and military jokes, they consistently get perhaps 130-180 countries in the world to align themselves against the US and Israel. That is clout that counts, over time.

  17. @ Michael S:

    The Chinese are fierce competitors to the USA who could become enemies. The USA and China will both be way better off if they find a way to settle their trade dispute. Israel does a lot of business with China and has no significant bones of contention with them.

    Putin clearly want to regain all the land Russians lost compared to when they were the USSR. Thanks to Obama they have regained their foothold in the middle east which they had lost. Obama left a power vacuum in places and Russia and Iran stepped right in. Obama was very naive and weak on foreign policy. He strengthen the Islamist’s and Russians.

  18. HI, Bear

    I generally agree with you. As for the US being Russia’s arch-enemy, I had to think about that a bit. You are right: We are orchestrating sanctions against them, and trying to interfere with their commerce with Germany.

    You got me to wondering about who OUR (the US and Israel) are, and I’ve come up with the following:

    Opposing us consistently in the UN:

    “The 10 countries with the lowest voting coincidence with the United States were, in ascending order:

    1. Zimbabwe,
    2. Burundi,
    3. Iran,
    4. Syria,
    5. Venezuela,
    6. North Korea,
    7. Turkmenistan,
    8. Cuba,
    9. Bolivia, and
    10. South Africa.”

    One could probably add the PLO to this list, were they a country. Others, who should be looked upon as enemies, are:

    Angola, Cambodia, Congo R., Eritrea, Laos, Lebanon, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Suriname, Zambia,

    Still others include many so-called “allies”, several hosting US & allied (alongside Russian and Chinese) bases:

    Algeria, Bhutan, Ecuador, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Malaysia, Mauritania, Philippines, Senegal, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Belarus, Brunei, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Dominican R., Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Grenada, Guyana, Indonesia, Iraq, Namibia, St. Vincent, Seychelles, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda

    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/united-nations-member-states-voting-records
    https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/281458.pdf

    With so many enemies, the Russians and Chinese almost seem like “friends”; but they aren’t. They’re enemies that we try to keep close to us — so we can keep an eye on them.

  19. Israel rejects Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea.

    Is Russia now leaving Crimea, no!

    Israel is NOT leaving Golan.

    Russia has interests and their arch-enemy is the USA, Israel’s best ally! Russian clients states include Iran and Syria, Israel’s enemies.

    Russia CAN NEVER be TRUSTED!