US Urges Syria Deal, Forgetting Who Took the Land
A recent headline from The New Arab reports that US envoy Tom Barrack is urging Israel and Syria to 'strike a deal amid rising tensions.' (You know, because 'rising tensions' just happen, totally unrelated to constant aerial bombardments.) The piece dutifully reports Barrack's call for 'coexistence,' failing, of course, to provide the inconvenient context: Israel's illegal occupation of the Syrian
Golan Heights since 1967, and its formal annexation in 1981—a move condemned by UN Security Council Resolution 497 and largely unrecognized internationally, except, notably, by the Trump administration in 2019. It's peak diplomatic theater: ask the victim of land theft to 'coexist' with the thief, preferably without mentioning the stolen goods. The US, which provides billions in military aid to
Israel annually (like the recent $14 billion package passed by Congress, with many members who’ve received significant AIPAC contributions, per OpenSecrets.org), now plays the 'neutral' arbiter. One might wonder: how many 'deals' does it take before someone suggests perhaps the occupied land should be returned before 'tensions' can truly dissipate? Or is 'peace' only achievable when the occupier
gets to keep what they took?