A month after US president Donald Trump formally recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to build a new settlement in the region to bear the name of the American head of state.
"In honor of President Trump, who recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, I will soon be calling for a settlement in the Golan Heights to be named after him", Netanyahu tweeted on Tuesday, April 23.
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) April 23, 2019
In a video posted on the Twitter account of Ofir Gendelman, spokesman for the prime minister’s office, Netanyahu declared that he intended to draft a resolution calling for the creation of such settlement, “named after President Donald J. Trump”, after the Passover holiday.
— Ofir Gendelman (@ofirgendelman) 23 апреля 2019 г.
But when news of the development spread across social media, many netizens appeared less than thrilled by it. "What better namesake for a monument to apartheid," one Twitter user said, with another calling the new settlement "Idiotville".
— Radioactive Dinosaur (@JeffSaysStuff2) 23 апреля 2019 г.
— Jonathan Lalonde (@JonathanLalon12) 23 апреля 2019 г.
— Erin “Lightly Redacted” Leahy (@EVML07) 23 апреля 2019 г.
— CW3 Schadenfreude🇺🇸🇫🇮🇸🇪🏴🇮🇪 (@ret_cw3) 23 апреля 2019 г.
— The Last Hope for Justice. (@GermaineMonroy) 23 апреля 2019 г.
READ MORE: Trump May Recognise West Bank as Israeli Land After Jerusalem & Golan – Analyst
The Golan Heights is a swath of Syrian territory seized by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967 and formally annexed by Tel Aviv in 1981, though the United Nations has not recognised Israel's claim over the region. President Trump signed an executive order on March 25 officially recognising Israeli sovereignty over the region, prompting the Syrian Foreign Ministry to respond that the Syrians had the right to return Golan Heights using any available methods.
