On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he would submit an official proposal to name a new community on the Golan Heights after President Donald Trump.
“I’m here on the beautiful Golan Heights,” Netanyahu began in a video. “All Israelis were deeply moved when President Trump made his historic decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Therefore, after the Passover holiday, I intend to bring to the government a resolution calling for a new community on the Golan Heights named after President Donald J. Trump.”
I'm here on the beautiful Golan Heights. All Israelis were deeply moved when President Trump made his historic decision to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. pic.twitter.com/ikgZhA01lt
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) April 23, 2019
Indeed, last month Trump called on the U.S. to formally recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights after 55 years. Israel took the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 during the Six-Day War. The region has been a hotbed for battles in the Syrian Civil War. Israelis built settlements on the Golan Heights, which the U.N. condemned in 1981. The region is critical for Israel and the stability of the Middle East.
On March 25, Trump formally recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Ever since Trump announced that the U.S. would consider Jerusalem the capital of Israel and would move the U.S. Embassy to that city, Netanyahu and Israeli leaders have honored the president in various ways.
In 2017, Israel’s transportation minister announced that the train station for the Western Wall would be named after Trump. In remarks last March, Netanyahu compared President Trump to the ancient Persian King Cyrus the Great and to Lord Balfour, who issued the proclamation establishing the state of Israel.
“I want to tell you that the Jewish people have a long memory. So we remember the proclamation of the great King Cyrus the Great — Persian King,” Netanyahu said. “Twenty-five hundred years ago, he proclaimed that the Jewish exiles in Babylon can come back and rebuild our temple in Jerusalem.”
“We remember, 100 years ago, Lord Balfour, who issued the Balfour Proclamation that recognized the rights of the Jewish people in our ancestral homeland,” he said. “We remember seventy years ago, President Harry S. Truman was the first leader to recognize the Jewish state. And we remember how a few weeks ago, President Donald J. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
The Golan Heights community is just one more historic way Israel will honor Trump, and it is an honor well deserved.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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