Iran says Trump’s Golan recognition a pro-Netanyahu election ploy

The top foreign affairs adviser to Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday slammed the Trump administration’s recognition of Israeli claims to the Golan Heights as an election ploy intended to support the reelection campaign of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump tweeted Thursday that it was “time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” reversing decades of US policy on the matter. White House officials are drafting an official US declaration, with Trump set to sign it when he hosts Netanyahu in Washington this week, Israeli TV reports said Friday.

On Sunday, Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said “the [US] declaration, which contradicts diplomatic agreements, is going to further complicate the situation in the Middle East beyond what it is today. It is a move for political support in the Zionist parliamentary elections and direct support for Netanyahu against his rivals,” according to Iranian media.

Velayati went on to charge that the US recognition violated international law. He accused the Trump administration of showing bias toward Israel, and accused the US of attempting to use the Golan issue to distract from its purported failures in Syria.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and later applied Israeli law over it, a step tantamount to annexation. The move was never recognized by the international community, which considers the area to be occupied Syrian territory, and most Druze residents of the area remain citizens of Syria.

Israeli leaders were exuberant over the announcement, with Netanyahu saying “the message that President Trump has given the world is that America stands by Israel.”

The move was seen as a potential major boon to the prime minister less than three weeks before the April 9 general election. A signing ceremony with Trump in the White House would be an even greater boost for Netanyahu.

But Trump has denied that his decision has anything to do with the Israeli election.

Trump’s move was condemned strongly by Syria and its allies Russia and Iran.

Syria’s official SANA news agency, quoting an unnamed foreign ministry official, slammed the decision as “irresponsible” and a violation of United Nations resolutions concerning the territory’s status. The source added that Trump’s statement won’t change “the fact that the Golan was and will remain Arab and Syrian.”

The European Union on Friday stressed that it would not change its position on the Golan and does not consider it a part of Israeli territory.

Trump’s recognition caught officials in Israel and the United States off-guard, according to the McClatchy news agency.

Hundreds of Druze in the Golan Heights rallied on Saturday against the recognition. Protesters in Syria also gathered along the border, and Israeli security forces were put on high alert for potential violence.

In Majdal Shams, a Druze town near the border, hundreds of people attended a protest rally, with many waving Syrian flags and holding up pictures of Syria’s President Bashar Assad.

Residents from other nearby Druze villages also took part in the demonstration, footage of which was broadcast on Syrian state television.

Wasef Khatar, a Druze community representative, said Trump was making commitments on “Arab, Syrian land, not Israeli.”

“We reject the decision of the American President Trump because he is talking about something he doesn’t own,” he said in Arabic.

A protest against Trump’s recognition was also held on the Syrian side of the border in Quneitra.