Date: Mar 28, 2019 Source: The Daily Star Gulf, Iran, Europe reject U.S. recognizing Golan as Israeli DUBAI: U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights united Washington’s Arab allies and their regional foe Iran in condemnation Tuesday. In Syria, thousands gathered in different cities to protest the U.S. step, while Damascus slammed it as “blatant aggression.” Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait criticized Monday’s move to recognize Israel’s 1981 annexation and said the territory was occupied Arab land. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi said it was an impediment to peace. Iran echoed the comments, describing Trump’s decision as unprecedented in this century. “No one could imagine that a person in America comes and gives land of a nation to another occupying country, against international laws and conventions,” President Hassan Rouhani was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA. Trump, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looking over his shoulder during a visit to Washington, Monday signed a proclamation officially granting U.S. recognition of the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory. The European members of the United Nations Security Council - France, Britain, Germany, Belgium and Poland - said they did not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the territories it has occupied since June 1967, including the Golan Heights. “We raise our strong concerns about broader consequences of recognizing illegal annexation and also about the broader regional consequences,” they said Tuesday. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed it in 1981 in a move the U.N. Security Council declared unlawful. “It will have significant negative effects on the peace process in the Middle East and the security and stability of the region,” a statement carried on the Saudi state news agency SPA said. It described the declaration as a clear violation of the U.N. Charter and of international law. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the decision Tuesday, telling reporters, “We are simply recognizing facts on the ground and the reality and doing the right thing.” He denied the decision was a violation of international law, calling it an “incredibly unique situation” in which Israel needed the Golan to defend itself. Trump senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner visited the Gulf Arab region last month to seek support for the economic portion of a long-awaited peace proposal for the Middle East. Qatar, which has been at loggerheads with other Gulf states over its policies, joined them in rejecting Trump’s move and called on Israel to end its occupation of the Golan Heights and comply with international resolutions. The United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said U.N. chief Antonio Guterres adhered to Security Council resolutions that Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights was “null and void and without international legal effect.” Russia warned of a “new wave” of tensions in the Middle East after the U.S. Golan move, which, it said, “ignores all international procedures” and would “only aggravate the situation.” Syria’s State news agency SANA posted photographs of a march in the southern city of Swaida Tuesday, in which men and women carried Syrian and Palestinian flags and banners reading “Golan is Syrian.” SANA said other protests took place in the southern city of Deraa, about 20 kilometers from the Golan Heights. Protests were also held in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, Homs and Hama in the center and Hassakeh in the northeast.   A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on March 27, 2019, on page 1.