Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) released a video post on Tuesday stating that a new community on the Golan Heights should be named after United States President Donald Trump, in appreciation for the American president’s announcement last month to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory won from Syria on the final day of the 1967 Six-Day War.
“I am here on the beautiful Golan Heights,” Netanyahu announced before expressing his intention to establish a new community on the strategic plateau named after Donald Trump.
Netanyahu’s desire to name a community on the Golan after Trump is reminiscent of King Herod building the town of Caesarea (where Netanyahu maintains a family home). Herod was a vassal king of Judea loyal to the Roman Empire. He spent a dozen years between 22-10 BCE building Caesarea as means to honor his patron Caesar Augustus.
Part of the ancient tribal territory of Menashe, the Golan was home to many Zealot guerrilla sects during the Roman occupation of the country. Gamla, a major population center of the Golan during that period, was the site of an epic battle between Hebrew rebels and Romans forces in the year 68.
The town is also said to be the community from where Rabbi Yehuda HaGlili – founder of the revolutionary 4th Philosophy – originally hailed. Rabbi Yehuda’s father Ḥezkiyahu had been executed by Herod for his anti-Roman activities.
When the British and French divided up the Middle East into colonial mandates following World War I, the Golan was included in the French mandate for Syria rather than the British mandate for Palestine. When the French mandate came to an end in 1944, the Golan became part of the new state of Syria and remained outside the territory later liberated by Jewish freedom fighters from British rule in 1948.
Israel eventually regained the territory in 1967 and Prime Minister Menaḥem Begin – a veteran commander of underground anti-British forces – annexed the Golan to Israel in 1981, despite fierce opposition from the US and its allies.
Until Trump’s late March recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, Washington’s long-standing policy of pressuring Israel to withdraw from the territory had been largely driven by the interests of US oil companies. But due to years of civil war and instability in Syria, those interests appear to have shifted.
The Financial Times reported in February 2013 that a Netanyahu-led government granted an American company the first license to explore for oil and gas on the Golan. A local subsidiary of former US Vice President Dick Cheney’s Genie Energy company was granted exclusive rights to a 153-square mile radius in the southern part of the heights.
Netanyahu’s behavior debases not only himself but also the people of Israel. His overeager message of gratitude to Donald Trump communicates that it was not Menaḥem Begin’s annexation but rather a foreign leader’s recognition that actually makes the Golan Heights part of the State of Israel.
This is precisely the psychological slavery we hope to see our nation break free from as Israel celebrates the festival of our freedom.
