Biden won't reverse recognition of Israel's Golan Heights annexation: report

A senior Biden campaign official said Israel's illegal annexation of the territory was 'de facto recognised anyway'.

2 min read

03 November, 2020

Joe Biden faces off with Donald Trump on November 3 [Getty]

Electoral victory for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden would not mean a reversal on the United States' recognition of Israel's illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, according to a report on Tuesday.

Israel captured the territory from Syria during the War of 1967 and illegally annexed it in 1981. The move was not recognised by the international community. Donald Trump did, however, in 2019.

"I don’t think a Biden administration would reverse that," a senior Biden campaign spokesperson was quoted as saying by the Jewish News Syndicate.

The spokesperson added that Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights was "de facto recognised anyway. It was largely symbolic. It didn't really change the calculus either by the United States or Israel or any of the neighbouring nations".

Under the Trump administration, Washington has extended significant suport for the right-right wing governments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The premier has hailed Trump as Israel's strongest ever ally in the White House.

In 2018, Trump broke with decades of US foreign policy by recognising the contested city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved his country's embassy there.

Joe Biden has disagreed with the move, but said that he would not reverse it.

Trump is the favourite among Israelis, with a recent poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) showing that 63 percent of Israelis - including 70 percent of Jews - think a Trump win is in Israel's interests.