 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today, we'll announce a declaration by US President Donald Trump that America would recognize Israel's annexation of the Jolan Heights. To talk more about this, we have with us, Prabir Prakash, the editor of NewsClick. Hello, Prabir. Prabir, let's look at the context in which this decision has happened. So Israel has been in control of the Jolan Heights for a long time, since 1967. And there's been a lot of discussion in the recent past, especially over the past couple of weeks that this decision was coming. And this decision was made in the light of the Israeli elections on April 9th. But could you give a bit of a background on the significance of the Jolan Heights itself? And what is the reason for this decision? Before we go into that, let's take what you said. At what is it due to? What is the, shall we say, the immediate reason for Trump as he has declaring the annexation of Jolan Heights by Israel should be recognized by the United States is really, of course, trying to stack the Israeli elections in favor of Neta Diyahu, who's currently in a difficult situation. There are cases of corruption, which the prosecuting authorities are saying have enough evidence to justify it going to trial and so on. So there is that backdrop of an embattled, shall we say, Neta Diyahu, who might otherwise lose the Israeli elections or could have lost the Israeli elections. And this could be a trump card in maintaining Neta Diyahu's position in Israel. At the moment, he has really aligned with, and we discussed this with Jah Zahem a couple of weeks before, that he has aligned with what would be called Nazi equivalent forces in Israel to the shock inside the United States to the liberal opinion, who otherwise have been supportive of Israel right through. So this is a really an electoral move and Donald Trump's decision is as much an attempt to, shall we say, change the Israeli elections and anything else. Of course, as you know, the Israeli elections are really between the right, the far right and even more far right. So that's the state of the Israeli elections. In this, what we seem to see is an attempt to give a formal recognition to a step which otherwise is illegal, recognized by international law to be occupied territory. And at the moment, the correct international legal position is the United Nations Resolution, which considers Jolaan to be occupied territory. So that's really the equivalent of international law because, as you know, that's a security council resolution. Coming back to what you said is the strategic importance of Jolaan, and this is really where we can see how the map Jolaan is, that Jolaan has three important roles. As we can see, two of them, the geo-strategic, one of them economic. The geo-strategic role is of course, its heights. So therefore, it overlooks Syria. In some sense, it can control a larger airspace and it can also control a larger land territory because it overlooks it and therefore, it's easier to attack it or control it militarily. So there is a military strategic importance to it. Other importance, these are land, these are water distressed states, whether it is Jordan, whether it is Lebanon and of course Israel. All of them have problems with water. Jolaan is the headwater. Lot of the water that flows into Jordan River. In fact, the major catchment of the Jordan River is Jolaan. So Jolaan in fact controls a lot of the water that goes into Israel by some accounts. It could be as much as 25 to 30 percent of the water that goes to Israel. And we're not talking on the West Bank here, really is from Jolaan. So that is the second geo-strategic part of it because water, as you know, is a very, very important issue for all the neighboring states in this region. And last of course is the economic one that Jolaan seems to have deposits of hydrocarbon oil and there are, shall we say, important American companies who are exploring Jolaan, who have very, very important figures in the United States or the board of such companies and therefore the economic significance of Jolaan is also its oil, which it may possess. And it has been argued that it could make even Israel self-sufficient oil. It's also interesting that other part of the oil resources are really the ones which are being controlled or could be considered a part of Gaza. And that is also something that Israel is claiming rights over. And therefore this, in fact, is Israel trying to grab resources from neighboring countries in the guise of occupation. But the occupation is not just military occupation, not about a dispute, but also basically trying to grab economic resources, which in fact Moshe Dayan said quite a bit earlier that the reason they went into Jolaan was economic resources and water. And it was not so much that it was a part of the 67 war. The provocation was from Israel. And if we look at the situation in Syria right now in this context, so on the one hand we see the Syrian government in the last one year, especially having a lot of, achieved a lot of victories in result and leading to some sort of stabilization. And Iran and Hezbollah are among the forces which have also helped the government in this effort. So how do you see this in the context of this decision in the context of the Syrian situation as well, especially when we look at say Trump's decision or so-called decision to withdraw forces, which he's actually not going to do? Well, here again Jolaan played a different role. As you know, Israel used to strike within Syria. And when it got some amount of arms, rockets, missiles, air cover, radar, et cetera from Russians, then one of the ways it retaliated, if it hit Damascus, Syria would hit Jolaan. So Israel had that check on it that if they want unlimited or untrammel right to bomb any part of Syria, that the Russians may not respond, but the Syrians could and they chose quite often Jolaan as a target. So that is one. And I think therefore declaring Jolaan to be a part of Israel would make, according to Americans and probably the Israelis, little more difficult. That's one argument. The second part of it, if you remember, in the clearing of the nearby areas to Jolaan, these were also the forces which were sheltered by Israeli forces, by Israel, and they belong strangely enough to al-Qaeda and ISIS. Supposedly the ones the Americans were fighting in the global war on terror and Israeli supposed to be their closest ally in the region. Now all of this were really, as we know or we have known for quite some time, were held by the Israeli side. They were treated in their hospitals, they effectively worked as a hinterland for the forces over there. And one of the difficulties that the Syrian forces had was clearing these areas because of the backing that Israel did. Quite often Israel would bomb or use artillery fire against the Syrian forces, claiming that any strike which came into Jolaan from these areas was basically responsibility of Syria, even if it was held by forces which were being supported at the time by Israel and gave them a free hand therefore to bomb or have artillery barrage or missile attack on the Syrian forces. So providing in fact our artillery support to the ISIS and al-Qaeda forces over there. So that part has been cleared out in this part, in this at least, and joining areas to Jolaan is now free of those. Now ISIS and al-Qaeda forces still are there. One of course is Idlib. Whereas we know there are strong al-Qaeda forces over there working in proximity with Arar al-Sham. All of them have changed their names just to get out of X, Y, Z, UN list, US list and so on. But effectively they remain the same forces and they had been earlier supported by Turkey. We'll have to see what Turkey is willing to do in terms of bringing back normalcy to this region. And of course you have the Syrian democratic forces, democratic front which is really the Kurdish forces supported by certain elements within eastern Syria and of course with US support. We have al-Tanab still in enclave, still controlled by the United States, still sheltering according to Syria forces which are close to al-Qaeda and ISIS. So all these things are there but it does seem when ISIS has virtually lost all territory that then the remaining pockets are being cleared by the United States claiming as if they have won the victory against ISIS and of course that it is not really the Syrian forces who have defeated ISIS on the ground which they have. And let's look at this decision so to speak also in the context of the Palestinian issue. So we also saw Trump more shifting the US embassy to Jerusalem and this is actually in some senses a move very similar to that again boosting Netanyahu considerably. And again in Israel they have been called for annexation of the West Bank as well. A lot of in fact like Netanyahu's parties MPs have actually called for that. And then there's Trump's deal of the century which actually envisions some sort of a fracturing of the Palestinian even the existing Palestinian state. So does this also look like a precedent for a similar move of that sort? Well I think it's very clear the United States is saying that whatever Israel has done or wants to do is acceptable to the United States in effect they are echoing what the Golden goldmire had said that there are no Palestinians. So they're only Arabs and Arabs can go live with other parts of Arab lands and this is really our land. I think this is what Mr. Trump is saying. And if they have to stay in West Bank if they don't leave West Bank then they have to stay as basically a second-class citizens under apartheid conditions. So the question now is no longer whether there is a chance of Palestinian shall we say independence, a West Bank independent state, a two-state solution. I think all of these are now almost impossible to achieve given the fact that this is what the position of the ground today is the Israeli apartheid regime has dominance militarily over the area is supported by United States. I don't see any possibility of militarily Israel being today forced to hand over so occupied territories. So the really the issue is no longer a two-state solution an independent West Bank with Jerusalem as its capital. No question of even Jalan which is a much is quite a different case than that of the West Bank. Jalan is essentially something which everybody recognizes as Syrian territory. That is also being thought of that it is worthy of annexation. So what we're looking at is can in the 21st century in the 21st century it's possible for an apartheid state like Israel to continue indefinitely and I think the answer to that is no but it's a matter of time now how long it will take before the apartheid state crumbles like South African state did. It is certainly a more difficult case in South Africa because the numbers are larger here and also it has the support of shall we say the biggest stroke state in the world today the United States. Thank you Pabir. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching Newsclick.