The New York Times reports: Israel’s assertion last week that it will never give up the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 war, drew a terse response on Tuesday from the United Nations Security Council, which said that a 35-year-old resolution rejecting Israeli sovereignty over the disputed land remains in effect.

The Security Council president for April, Ambassador Liu Jieyi of China, told reporters after a closed meeting that its 15 members had “expressed their deep concern over recent Israeli statements about the Golan, and stressed that the status of the Golan remains unchanged.”

He emphasized that Resolution 497 of December 1981, a response to Israel’s annexation of the area that month, had not been rescinded. The resolution states that “the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect.” [Continue reading…]