The world body’s General Assembly voted for its annual non-binding resolution, which declares Israel’s jurisdiction over the Golan Heights “null and void” and a “flagrant violation of international law.” Head of the vote, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations declared that his country would retake the territory “by peace or by war,” to which Israel’s Ambassador responded that Jerusalem would never withdraw from the territories it captures during the 1967 Middle East war. While the vote marked a regular protest by the international community against the decision by the Jewish State to assert its sovereignty over, what used to be Syrian territory; for the first time in history, the United States joined Israel in voting against the resolution. While past U.S. Administration had always instructed their U.N. representatives to abstain in the vote, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley announced the change in Washington’s policy, in response to the anti-Israel bias and the atrocities committed by the Assad regime during the Syrian civil war. Haley underscored that “The United States will no longer abstain when the United Nations engages in its useless annual vote on the Golan Heights,” while asserting that “If this resolution ever made sense, it surely does not today.” In response to the American decision, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed President Donald Trump and Ambassador Nikki Haley as true champions for Israel’s security – while reaffirming his commitment: |Israel will always remain on the Golan Heights, and the Golan Heights will always remain in (Jerusalem’s) hands.”