Finian Cunningham: US Duplicity over Golan Demolishes Posturing on CrimeaArchived Message
Posted by sashimi on March 19, 2019, 6:17 pm
19th March 2019 (quote) In a controversial snub to international law, the United States signaled last week that it is moving to officially recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israeli territory. If the US does so, then it forfeits any moral authority to sanction Russia over allegations of "annexing Crimea".
In its annual US State Department report, the section dealing with the Golan Heights reportedly refers to the contested area as "Israeli-controlled", not "Israeli-occupied". The change in wording deviates from United Nations resolutions and international norm which use the term "Israeli-occupied" to designate the land Israel annexed from Syria following the 1967 Six Day War.
Israel has occupied the western part of the Golan since 1967 as a spoil from that war. In 1981, Tel Aviv formally annexed the Syrian territory. However, the UN Security Council in 1981, including the US, unanimously condemned the annexation as illegal. The resolution mandates Israel to return the land to Syria which has historical claim to the entire Golan. The area of 1,800 square kilometers is a strategic elevation overlooking the northern Jordan Valley.
If Washington confirms its recent indications of recognizing the Golan as officially part of Israel, the development would mark an egregious flouting of international law.
But what's more, such a move totally prohibits Washington from posturing with presumed principle over the issue of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula which since 2014 voluntarily became part of Russia.
Just last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeated accusations against Russia of "annexing" Crimea. Pompeo insisted that US sanctions against Moscow would be maintained until Russia "returns Crimea to Ukraine".
"The world has not forgotten the cynical lies Russia employed to justify its aggression and mask its attempted annexation of Ukrainian territory," he said. "The United States will maintain respective sanctions against Russia until the Russian government returns control of Crimea to Ukraine."
Last year, Pompeo's State Department issued a 'Crimea Declaration' in which it was stated that, "Russia undermines a bedrock of international principle shared by democratic states: that no country can change the borders of another by force."
Claims by Washington and the European Union of "illegal annexation" of Crimea by Russia are the central basis for five years of economic sanctions imposed on Moscow. Those sanctions have contributed to ever-worsening tensions with Russia and the build-up of NATO forces along Russia's borders.
Those claims are, however, highly contestable. The people of Crimea voted in a legally constituted referendum in March 2014 to secede from Ukraine and to join the Russian Federation. That referendum followed an illegal coup in Kiev in February 2014 backed by the US and Europe against a legally elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. Historically, Crimea has centuries of shared cultural heritage with Russia. Its erstwhile position within the state of Ukraine was arguably an anomaly of the Cold War and subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union.
In any case, there is scant comparison between the Golan Heights and Crimea, save, that is, for the latest hypocrisy in Washington. While Crimea and its people are arguably historically part of Russia, the Golan Heights are indisputably a sovereign part of Syria which was forcibly annexed by Israeli military occupation.
The illegality of Israel's occupation of Golan is a matter of record under international law as stipulated in UNSC Resolution 497.
There is no such international mandate concerning Crimea. Claims of Russia's "annexation" are simply a matter of dubious political assertion made by Washington and its European allies.