Dec 26, 2021: Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says investment in the region was prompted by US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said his country intends to double the number of settlers in the Golan Heights, a multi-million dollar project aimed at consolidating Israel’s hold on the region it occupied over 50 years ago.

Bennett said the new investment in the region was signaled by the Trump administration’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty in 2019 and the Biden administration’s indication that it would not challenge the decision any time soon.

“This is our moment. This is the moment of the Golan Heights,” Bennett said at a special Cabinet meeting in the Golan Heights on Sunday.

“After long and static years in terms of the scope of settlement, our goal today is to double settlement in the Golan Heights,” he added.

Israel occupied the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed it from Syria in 1981. A large majority of the international community considers the move illegal under international law.

The Golan Heights are home to about 25,000 Israeli settlers, along with about 23,000 Druze who have been in the area since the Israeli occupation. The United States was the first country to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the region.

Bennett said the war in Syria had made the idea of ​​Israeli control of the region more acceptable to his international allies, adding that an alternative would be worse.

Israel has long argued that the strategically important territory, for all practical purposes, has been fully integrated into Israel since its occupation and the strategic plateau is important in protecting it from Iran and its allies in Syria.

Bennett, who ideologically leads a coalition of eight different parties, needs cabinet approval before proceeding with his Golan Heights plan. Sunday’s meeting was temporarily delayed when the prime minister’s 14-year-old daughter tested positive for the corona virus, sending Bennett into isolation, but a vote on the plan was still expected.

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