(Aug. 24, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack on Sunday walked back comments describing Israel\u2019s control of the Golan Heights as an occupation, saying he had been referring to the territory\u2019s historical status.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnited States policy on the Golan was set by President Trump in 2019 and is unchanged,\u201d Barrack said in a statement to The Associated Press. He said his remarks were \u201cnot an endorsement of the United Nations\u2019 position\u201d on the territory, which Israel captured during the 1967 Six-Day War and extended sovereignty over in 1981.<\/p>\n
Barrack had said on Friday that Israel \u201cstill occupies\u201d the Golan Heights, prompting Defense Minister Israel Katz to note he was contradicting<\/a> the U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty there. <\/p>\n Katz said that Barrack\u2019s remarks were \u201criddled with inaccuracies and positions that contradict those of U.S. President Trump himself regarding the status of the Golan Heights.\u201d<\/p>\n Barrack\u2019s comments also drew backlash in Washington. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote on X that the ambassador appeared to have \u201cforgotten\u201d Trump\u2019s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the territory.<\/p>\n On March 25, 2019, Trump signed Proclamation 9852<\/a> recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau. On Aug. 10, 2026, Colombia\u2019s Foreign Ministry announced<\/a> Bogota\u2019s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, becoming the second country to officially endorse Jerusalem\u2019s claim to the territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Aug. 24, 2026 \/ JNS) U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-594290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}