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Photo: Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Jerusalem
John Bolton
Photo: Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Jerusalem

Bolton: US not discussing recognition of Israel's Golan hold

US national security advisor says Washington understands 'the Israeli claim that it has annexed the Golan Heights' but 'there's no change in the US position for now'; charges that UNRWA 'violates standard international law on the status of refugees.'

The Trump administration is not discussing possible US recognition of Israel's claim of sovereignty over the Golan Heights, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said.

 

 

Israel captured much of the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed it in a move not endorsed internationally. In May, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said that US recognition could be forthcoming within months.

 

"I've heard the idea being suggested but there's no discussion of it, no decision within the US government," Bolton told Reuters during a visit to Israel. "Obviously we understand the Israeli claim that it has annexed the Golan Heights—we understand their position—but there's no change in the US position for now."

 

Palestinians seek other territories that Israel captured in 1967—the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem—for a future state. US-backed talks on that goal stalled in 2014.

 

The Trump administration has tried to restart the diplomacy but has been cold-shouldered by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas since it recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital last December.

 

John Bolton (Photo: Reuters)
John Bolton (Photo: Reuters)

 

Washington has also signaled possible accommodation with Israel's West Bank settlements, dropping the term "occupied" from some US documentation about the territory. Most world powers deem the settlements illegal.

 

Asked whether the Trump administration envisaged Palestinian statehood as the way forward, Bolton sounded circumspect.

 

"I think it's been the US view for a long time that ultimately Israelis and Palestinians are going to have to agree on this," he said. "Nobody's going to impose a peace in that respect."

 

Whether peace talks with Abbas could resume was "up to him," Bolton said.

 

Bolton meets with Netanyahu in Jerusalem (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)
Bolton meets with Netanyahu in Jerusalem (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

 

The Trump adviser was more forthright about Washington's trimming of funds for United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which extends aid to Palestinians displaced by the 1948 War of Independence and to millions of their descendants.

 

"UNRWA is a failed mechanism. It violates standard international law on the status of refugees. UNRWA's program is the only one in history based on the assumption that refugee status is hereditary, and I think it is long overdue that we have taken steps to reduce funding," Bolton said.

 

UNRWA and the Palestinians have warned that the cuts could exacerbate hardship in Gaza, an enclave that has been under Israeli and Egypt blockades designed to isolate its Islamist Hamas rulers. Abbas, Hamas' Palestinian rival, has also restricted funding to Gaza.

 

Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, sought to place the onus for Gaza's plight on Hamas, and disputed the linkage between the UNRWA budget and Palestinian wellbeing.

 

"Much of UNRWA's expenses really go to perpetuating the refugee status of the Palestinian people, and I think that's a mistake. I think it's a mistake from a humanitarian point of view ... a perpetuation of an unnatural status," he said.

 

"I think what we want to see for Palestinians is real, gainful employment," Bolton said, echoing calls by Washington and Israel for economic betterment of the West Bank and Gaza. "Unless you have functioning economies, you are never going to have social and political stability."

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.22.18, 08:21
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