TALI FEINBERG
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation released a statement on Tuesday saying: “South Africa joins the international community in expressing concerns on the US Administration’s decision to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Syrian Heights.”
This came after Trump upended decades of US policy by announcing – on Twitter – that he did not expect Israel to give up the Golan Heights.
“After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and regional stability!” he wrote on 21 March.
The Golan is a strategic territory captured from Syria in the Six-Day War and formally annexed in 1981. The annexure has not been recognised by many countries, but few Israelis could ever imagine returning this vital piece of land.
Nine months after the start of the Syrian civil war in March 2011, an overwhelming 77% of Israelis said it would not be possible for Israel to return the Golan Heights.
DIRCO referred to the “unilateral decision” of the US as a “serious violation of UN Charter, International Law (sic) and applicable UN Security Council resolutions”. The statement went on to say: “Such unilateral declarations constitute a severe setback to the rule of law and international norms.
“The government of the Republic of South Africa will not support any unilateral action by the US government that undermines efforts of creating peace and stability in the Middle East region.”
It then called on the United Nations Security Council to exercise its mandate in preserving international peace and security, and implement its relevant resolutions to take the Golan Heights from Israel to give to Syria.
Political analyst Steven Gruzd said: “This move appears to follow from President Trump’s approach of acknowledging the realities on the ground, as he did with recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. But the US is out of step with the rest of the world on the Golan.”
He said South Africa condemning the move would not help to improve the country’s ties with either Israel or the US. “Israel would be unlikely to surrender the Golan Heights due to its strategic importance as high ground, and any peace deal with Syria looks far off anyway. I don’t think this will, on its own, affect the relationship between South Africa and the US. South Africa has adopted a generally anti-Trump orientation and this fits into that mould. But Pretoria’s close ties with Tehran and Damascus might come into the reckoning when the US considers how to relate to South Africa going forward.”
Former diplomat J Brooks Spector, who hails from the US and lives in South Africa, said Trump’s announcement came as a shock to many, and was seen as being “a little too involved in the domestic electoral policies of Israel”. In other words, this might be a way to boost Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the polls.
Spector said the South African government condemning the move was in line with many other countries. He also did not think this would particularly affect South African-US relations, as it was mainly a symbolic move. However, he pointed out that South Africa had voted with the US on just 18% of United Nations resolutions, meaning they are not in sync on many topics.
Although Trump’s Golan Heights comment is highly symbolic, it will not change much on the ground. For Spector, this is the curious aspect of moves such as these – they make a big statement but don’t actually lead to any changes towards peace in the Middle East.
He added that these gestures have pushed the parties further apart, making it more difficult for the Trump administration to enact its peace plan.
He also mentioned that Trump often announced these decisions on Twitter, at odd hours, which means “they are not going through the structures and mechanisms that have been there with every other post-war president. There is definitely a new ad hoc spontaneity to making such foreign policy decisions.”
