Imagine the significance of what Donald Trump said about the Golan!
The President of the United States effectively reaffirmed Israel’s occupation and annexation of the Golan Heights while Abu Mohammad al-Julani sat beside him without a single objection, not even a reminder that… pic.twitter.com/f6RlXdpmuw
— Kevork Almassian (@KevorkAlmassian) July 9, 2026
The US-UK-Zionist ally, former ISIS-linked Syrian terror leader al-Jolani, recently attended another intimate US-NATO press conference. In the clip, Ahmed al-Sharaa (as he since restyled himself) silently capitulates Syria’s territory to Zionist occupation.
Trump reaffirms Israel’s illegal occupation and annexation of the Golan Heights, while Abu Mohammad al-Jolani sat beside him without any objection. Trump says:
No President has done as much for Israel as I have. Not even close. Just look at all the things: Jerusalem, erm, the Golan Heights. We did things. Nobody has ever done anything for Israel like me.
The Syrian leader’s silence at a moment like this is effectively state policy. When the US president declares the Golan to be Israeli territory, the self-proclaimed ‘President of Syria’ says nothing. The world can only interpret that silence as acceptance of the status quo.
Before unpacking the Golan’s history of occupation and displacement, it’s worth a taking refresher on who the relatively recently-declared Syrian president is. He’s al-Sharaa to some, al-Jolani to others. Either way, we know ever more clearly where his true political allegiances lie.
Most of all, al-Jolani’s post-terrorist era ‘rehabilitation’ entirely undermines decades of narrative-building around the ‘War on Terror’. Whatever alleged inherent opposition US officials, including President Trump, claim to harbour towards Islamic fundamentalists… They clearly don’t mind when interests align.
Starmer removes Syrian ISIS subsidiary HTS from terror ban list
Al-Jolani — Who is the Syrian president?
He was a leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a breakaway of Al Qaeda with links to ISIS. The former, Al Qaeda, reportedly considered HTS too extreme. It has a record of massacring and abusing minoritised groups, including significant numbers of Alawite, Druze, Christian, homosexual and women.
Since at least 2017, al-Jolani was wanted by the US State Department, with a bounty on information about him set at $10m. His bounty was only cancelled in late 2024, after his Sunni jihadist faction, ‘HTS’, took control over much of Syria. Now he poses regularly for photos with Western heads of state.
One helpful article on the London School of Economics’ (LSE) blog page said in late 2025:
On 24 September 2025, al-Sharaa stepped onto the global stage, addressing the United Nations in New York. His speech was more than symbolic: it marked the entry of a former al-Qaeda and ISIL-linked commander into formal diplomacy, ironically in the very city that suffered the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks. …
Al-Sharaa’s trajectory mirrors the broader story of global Jihad. Under his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani, he trained under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, fought U.S. forces, and rose through the Islamic State under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In 2012, he crossed into Syria and founded Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, notorious for suicide bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations.
By 2017, he rebranded the group as HTS, distancing himself rhetorically from al-Qaeda. Designated as a terrorist by the U.N. Security Council since 2013, al-Sharaa resurfaced in late 2024 in a suit and tie, shedding his nom de guerre and presenting himself as a statesman. Behind the wardrobe change, the ideology remained unchanged.
Almost a month afteral-Jawlani’s appearance at the UN General Assembly, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer took steps to de-proscribe HTS. This means that Starmer un-banned HTS mere months after proscribing anti-genocide peace activist group Palestine Action a “terror organisation.” This is clearly absurd.
Remind us which was “notorious for suicide bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations,” Sir Keir?
By donning a suit, polishing up his English and compromising himself regionally, al-Jolani was warmly welcomed into the NATO-Zionist-led international regime. When Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fled in late 2024, HTS took over and imposed its own dictatorial, fundamentalist regime.
The only difference is that this one was willing to bow to Western imperial interests. And central to those interests in the region, of course, is the Zionist settler-colonial military state project of ‘Israel’.
Golan Heights: more Zionist occupation
The Golan Heights mountain plateau spans some 1,800sq km (700sq miles) in the south-western corner of Syria. It borders Jordan, Lebanon and everyone’s worst neighbour, Israel.
It has been occupied by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) following its Six Day War in 1967. The Zionist entity then annexed most of Golan in 1982. The UN upholds a buffer zone on the Syrian side, while only the USA recognises occupied Golan as ‘Israel’. Trump officially recognised it as such in 2019.
Golan land is largely rugged basalt rock: fertile, hilly land where volcanic soil grows apple and cherry orchards and vineyards. The region holds vital water sources feeding the Jordan River, including the Hasbani River, which flows from Lebanon and through the Golan. Not land most Syrians wish to part with…
Yet today, more than 30 Israeli settlements are in the Golan, where more than 25,000 Jewish Israelis now live as illegal occupiers and human shields. Plausibly over 100,000 people, many of them Druze, were displaced and expelled by the IOF in the months and years following the 1967 occupation. Now many live under a similar regime of apartheid to that in occupied Jerusalem and wider Palestine.
In 1981, the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing Israel’s occupation of Golan. It called on Israel to rescind its imposition of ‘Israeli law’ on the plateau. It declared Israel’s rule over Golan:
null and void and without international legal effect.
Trump and Biden, both being fundamentalist Zionists and war-criminals, equally dismissed all this.
In late April 2026, Israel approved a $334m plan to move Israelis in while keeping long-displaced Syrians out of occupied Golan. It aimed to bring in another 3,000 Zionist ‘civilians’ — many of whom comprise armed militias — to so-called ‘Katzrin’ city by 2030. Human Rights Watch described it as:
clear statement of intent to commit war crimes.
Golan’s occupation resembles the ‘Crimson Thread’ project: the IOF barrier cutting off Palestine’s essential “breadbasket” agricultural land. The planned 500km IOF barrier would block off Palestinians from a large swathe of some of the most fertile farming land in the entire occupied West Bank.
Legitimise and reintegrate: Syria’s ex-Al Qaeda president to attend G7 conference
Featured image via the Canary
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