President Trump Signs Proclamation Recognizing Golan Heights as Part of Israel
ZAKARIA: Somewhat lost in the Mueller report hysteria at the beginning of the week was a Trump action that overturned many decades of American foreign policy. On Monday, Donald Trump signed a proclamation that recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel. The area forms a border between Israel and Syria and was captured by Israel some 52 years ago during the Six-Day War. Now Trump may say it is now part of Israel. Does it make it so? The U.N., for one, says no. Let us bring in two folks to discuss. Einat Wilf joins us from Tel Aviv. She's a former member of the Knesset and an author and an intellectual. Peter Beinart is an intellectual too. He is a professor at the Newmark School of Journalism and a contributor to both CNN and The Atlantic. Peter, let me start with you. What are the stakes here? Why does it matter that Trump recognized the Golan Heights?</s>PETER BEINART, PROFESSOR, NEWMARK SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM: It matters because of the precedent it sets in two ways. Look, nobody thinks that Israel is going to give back the Golan Heights to Syria during a civil war. This would have to be a process of negotiation as took place in the 1990s. But there are two dangerous precedents. The first is the notion that if you take territory by force, you can keep it, which the Russians are already saying is a precedent for what they've done in Crimea. The second is the precedent that Israel might apply this to the West Bank to annex parts of the West Bank, settlements in the West Bank. Most of the people in Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party who will be elected next month already support this and the Israeli government is already talking about this as a precedent for an annexation in the West Bank that would kill the two-state solution.</s>ZAKARIA: Einat, is that -- does that strike you as dangerous precedent or is it fine?</s>EINAT WILF, FORMER MEMBER OF ISRAELI PARLIAMENT: Precisely the opposite. First of all, the only precedent that was set was that Syria and other Arab actors were allowed to operate for decades with zero consequences for aggression. Syria could invade Israel, refuse to recognize Israel, refuse to set an international border, use the plateau of the Golan Heights in order to shell down on Israeli civilians, host terrorist organizations that were responsible for some of the worst attacks on Israeli civilians. It could do all that, lose a war of aggression against Israel, and still get in the international arena to say, oops we got to do a redo, our bet didn't work out so we're going bet again and again and again. And every time the international community --</s>ZAKARIA: But Israel -- but Israel responds --</s>WILF: -- is going to allow us to give a -- to do a redo.</s>ZAKARIA: Israel responds to every one of those provocations, it retaliates against them. It fights back against Hezbollah or whatever organization lobs missiles at it. How does a formal annexation help Israel in that sense?</s>WILF: In the diplomatic arena, there was always a sense that Syria can continue betting and would always get a redo, that there were no diplomatic consequences to its aggressive actions. Now this is saying the era of no consequences for Arab aggression is over.</s>ZAKARIA: Peter, what do you make of that?</s>BEINART: This doesn't really make any sense. No one was suggesting Israel would give back the Golan Heights while Syria was still in a state of belligerence. The negotiations during the 1990s were all about the idea that Israel would give back probably not all but part of the Golan Heights in return for peace. So Einat is saying that the principle somehow of -- of -- of Sadat and -- and Camp David makes it legitimate. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. The entire principle of Camp David was land for peace. Israel gave back the Sinai, which it took in '67 in return for peace. I'm not saying that that principle can be brought into play now with Syria in a state of civil war, but you are making that impossible. There's one other point I want to make which is important. There are people who live on the Golan Heights. The 20,000 mostly Druze original members of the Golan Heights should be consulted as part of this process. They don't -- they actually generally have rejected Israeli citizenship and would have considered themselves still Syrians. We are completely ignoring their perspective in this conversation.</s>ZAKARIA: Let me -- Einat, let me just move quickly because I don't have time. I do want to get your perspective on whether this helps or hurts Benjamin Netanyahu in his quest for the prime ministership and whether you think generally speaking the corruption charges against him help or hurt. What is -- what -- in your view, does Bibi look like he's damaged goods or could he still be the next prime minister?</s>WILF: He is both. He is both damaged goods and could be the next prime minister. He's still standing, he's still a formidable opponent. The issue of the Golan Heights itself doesn't seem to play or to make a big difference either way. I personally am going to vote for the opposition and I yet I think this is an important step, one that is also good for the United States and allows it a low cost win in Syria. But Netanyahu continues to be a formidable opponent and we're likely not to know truly whether he can be the next prime minister until the last vote is counted.</s>ZAKARIA: Peter, Bibi next prime minister?</s>BEINART: You know, it's interesting, we've just been talking about Russian interference in our elections. This was a blatant American interference in the Israeli elections by giving Netanyahu this huge gift. It's -- it was popular across the political spectrum but one of Netanyahu's main reelection campaign themes is only I can deal with the United States and now Trump has given him this huge gift so it seems to me if we want people to stay out of our elections, we should stay out of their elections.</s>ZAKARIA: Peter, Einat . Thank you so much. Fascinating conversation and we will be back.