Hundreds of thousands of words are written and broadcast around the world each day about US foreign policy. Rarely does the US State Department tweet out that one of those stories is flat-out wrong.
But it did just that on Friday in response to a story the day before in the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website that claimed the Biden administration had walked back former president Donald Trump’s 2019 recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
That the State Department felt the need to initiate a public disclaimer to this story says much about how Washington and Jerusalem are charting their relations under the new Bennett-Lapid government.
“US policy regarding the Golan has not changed, and reports to the contrary are false,” the State Department tweet read.
The Washington Free Beacon story, headlined “Biden Admin Walks Back US Recognition of Golan Heights as Israeli Territory,” trumpeted a dramatic US policy shift without providing any solid evidence to back up the claim.
Had that story just remained in Washington, the State Department probably would not have felt the need to issue a flat-out denial. But the story wasn’t just staying in Washington. It was quickly picked up by news outlets in Israel and plastered as a bulletin on high-profile social media sites, and it made waves.
“Report in the US: The Biden Administration cancels the Trump decision from two years ago recognizing the Golan Heights as part of Israel,” Tweeted N12.
Army Radio tweeted this: “Reports in the US: The Biden Administration intends to withdraw from Trump’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights; a response from the government has not yet been received.”
Once those bulletins were on social media, the reaction in Israel – without checking the veracity of the report – was fast and, at times, furious.
Oded Forer, minister for the development of the Negev and the Galilee (Yisrael Beytenu), tweeted that the Golan is “an important and integral part of the State of Israel, and will always be so.” Basing his comment on this story, he instructed the professional staff in his ministry to come up soon with a government resolution “supporting” the Golan Heights with the aim of “doubling its population.”
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev (Labor) tweeted, “The Golan Heights became no more Israeli because of Trump’s decision, and it will not become less Israeli if the decision is now revoked.”
Coalition chair MK Idit Silman (Yamina) tweeted: “The Golan Heights, its inhabitants and its strategic importance are an integral part of the sovereign State of Israel. We will never give up our right to the Land of Israel, and the settlement in it.”
The story was taking on a dynamic of its own, and left hanging out there unanswered, it could have created serious problems – less in relations between Israel and the US, because there was no such policy shift, and more for the government itself, since anti-government critics and pundits were having a field day.
“The Biden administration cancels Trump’s historic decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan,” tweeted Arutz 20’s Shimon Riklin. “The government’s response to this anti-Israel move has not yet been received. What a bunch of non-serious amateurs.”
This is why the State Department’s swift response was significant. It deprived the government’s critics of ammunition with which to continue blasting it and casting both Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and unable to stand up to the Biden administration.
The Free Beacon story came just three days after Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu charged disingenuously that Lapid had forfeited Israel’s right to act against Iran by saying in a telephone conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel and the US would employ a “no surprise” policy with one another.
The subtext of Netanyahu’s allegations about Lapid’s “no surprise” comment and the alleged Biden reversal on recognizing Israeli control of the Golan Heights was the same, and a narrative Netanyahu has long been promoting: this government cannot stick up for itself when it comes to the US.
The very fact that the State Department responded as quickly as it did to the Free Beacon story indicates the degree to which Washington is sensitive to, and aware of, this government’s precarious political predicament, and does not want to add to its problems.
It also indicates that there is a good line of communication between Jerusalem and Washington, as the message was surely passed from the Foreign Ministry to the State Department about the damage that this story could cause the government.
Lapid tweeted on Friday: “The Golan Heights is a strategic asset and an integral part of sovereign Israel. The US recognizes our sovereignty over the Golan Heights and its strategic importance to Israel. Those spreading rumors about rescinding this recognition are damaging security, damaging the sovereign declaration, and are willing (not for the first time) to cause real damage to the State of Israel, and to endanger its security and relations with the US, only in order to harm the new government.”
This story, Lapid made clear, was an attempt to drive a wedge between the new government and the Biden Administration. The administration made equally clear that it was not about to play along.