TEL AVIV – The US has for the first time published an international map showing the Golan Heights as part of Israel, three weeks after President Donald Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the territory captured from Syria in 1967.
Trump’s Special Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt tweeted a picture of the map on Tuesday, saying: “Welcome to the newest addition of our international maps system.”
The map delineates the 1974 ceasefire line between Israel and Syria as a permanent border. The Golan Heights was officially annexed by Israel in 1981 in a move that has since remained unrecognized by the international community. The map still refers to the West Bank as Israeli-occupied, but notes that its final status will be determined by the parties involved.
The new map was included in the CIA world factbook. The text accompanying the map, however, continues to label both eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights “Israeli occupied.”
The updated map was met with anger from the Arab world, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait declaring the Golan Heights to be “occupied Arab land”.
The EU also condemned the move, noting that it still considered the strategic plateau to be “occupied territory.”