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Obama Should Make Clear US Position on Golan

The announcement that Genie Energy, a US company, has been granted a license for oil exploration in the Golan requires the US to make clear its position that the Golan Heights are Syrian territory under Israeli occupation, writes Clovis Maksoud.
Mount Hermon is seen in the background as Israeli soldiers travel on mobile artillery units after an exercise in the Golan Heights, near Israel's border with Syria February 14, 2013. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed the territory in 1981, a move not recognised internationally. REUTERS/Baz Ratner (POLITICS MILITARY) - RTR3DSD4

For Israel to grant a US company (Genie Energy) the license to explore for oil in the occupied Golan Heights is signaling to the world that the occupied Golan Heights fully belongs to Israel. The New York-based company that was granted the license includes Jacob Rothschild, Rupert Murdoch, and Dick Cheney among its shareholders. Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights has not been recognized under international law.

This attempt, as in the Palestinian territories, to create in the West Bank and Jerusalem further settlements and now licensing foreign companies to explore for oil in Syrian territory is a testament to the fact (in a most provocative way) that Israel does not and has not ever considered itself except as a conqueror with the prerogative to deny the rights of the conquered territories and its people. This is obviously a crude and cruel exploitation by Israel of the tragic internal crisis that Syria is experiencing at this moment.

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