U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack has claimed that Israel is “occupying” the Golan Heights, contradicting the Trump administration’s established policy of acknowledging Jerusalem’s sovereignty over the territory.
Barrack, who is also special envoy for Syria and Iraq, accused Israel of “occupying” the Golan Heights in violation of the dictates of the United Nations and the “international order.” “They still occupy the Golan against the UN resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan is Syria’s,” he said in an interview with Lebanese-Australian podcast host Mario Nawfal.
In 2019, President Donald Trump signed an executive order recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Israel took control of the strategic mountainous plateau in the defensive war of 1967, overrunning Soviet-supplied Syrian artillery that was shelling low-lying Israeli towns and villages.
While recognizing Israel’s right over the territory in 2019, President Trump noted that the Israeli military “took control of the Golan Heights in 1967 to safeguard its security from external threats.” With persisting terrorist and military threats in the region, the strategic heights remain “a potential launching ground for attacks against Israel,” he observed.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz slammed the U.S. Special Envoy for straying from President Trump’s official policy. Barrack’s comment “is full of inaccuracies and positions that contradict the position of U.S. President Trump himself regarding the Golan Heights,” the defense minister said.
In the same podcast, Barrack floated another bizarre theory, speculating that the recent IDF airstrike on a Syrian airbase was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ploy to sway Israeli elections set for October. The Israeli Air Force carried out the strikes amid Turkey’s efforts to extend its military presence in Syria.
“One theory is they were just baiting Turkey, and it’s a very aggressive, but maybe well-received, pre-election concept,” he declared. “The other theory is that between the IDF, the Mossad and the Prime Minister’s Office there was a miscommunication.”
On Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets reportedly struck a Syrian airbase that Turkey has been planning to occupy. Israel struck the Abu Duhur air base in northern Syria shortly after a Turkish military delegation inspected the Assad-era facility, media reports indicate. Turkey’s Erdogan regime is responsible for propping up the Ahmed al-Sharaa-led Islamist rule in Syria.
The strike was to thwart Turkish plans to install air defense systems in the area, official Israeli source confirm. Israel shared this intelligence with Washington.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to fight terrorists in and around the Golan region. The IDF on Saturday eliminated a terrorist trying to stage a cross-border attack near the Syrian border. The Israeli border troops “fired in southern Syria toward a terrorist who advanced terror attacks in final stages of preparation,” the military disclosed. “The terrorist’s activity posed an immediate threat to IDF soldiers.”
On Friday, a group of Hezbollah terrorists intruded into the Israeli Security Zone in southern Lebanon. “IDF soldiers identified several suspects who crossed into the Security Zone in the Baraashit area, entered a structure, and posed a threat to IDF soldiers,” the military revealed. “Following the identification, the IDF carried out a strike on the structure.”
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