Donald Trump tells visitors at Miami golf resort: 'I gave you Golan Heights'

Former US president Donald Trump told a group of visitors at a golf resort he owns in Miami "I gave you the Golan Heights" on Wednesday, according to footage shared on social media.

✡️ -- WATCH: Donald Trump yesterday at his golf resort in Miami tells a group of Jews about giving them (Israel) the Golan Heights. pic.twitter.com/Clg1PbTfKl

— Belaaz News (@TheBelaaz) May 18, 2023

The group of reportedly Jewish visitors could be heard shouting at Trump as he passed by on a golf cart "can we get a picture?" "You're the best" and "God is with you."

Trump responded by saying "Golan Heights. I gave you [the] Golan Heights. Remember that. Have a good time."

The Golan Heights were captured by the State of Israel from Syria in the Six Day War in 1967. About 14 years later, in 1981, then prime minister Menachem Begin's government was seen as de-facto annexing the area with the passage of the Golan Heights Law which applied Israeli law and jurisdiction to the area, although the law did not explicitly use the words "annexation" or "sovereignty."

During a discussion in the Knesset plenum ahead of the passage of the first reading of the law, Begin responded to criticism by then MK Amnon Rubinstein about the possible consequences of the move, saying "You use the word 'annexation,' I don't use it." Begin explained that the law was needed because a previous law about applying Israeli law to all the territory of the Land of Israel only applied to land that was part of Mandatory Palestine, which the Golan Heights was not.

Menachem Begin: We shed our blood for this land, not America or France or anyone else

Begin added at the time that "No one will push us to the lines of June 4, 1967 (the borders before the Six Day War). No nation, no power will be able to push us to those lines - the lines of indolence, the lines of bloodshed, the lines of provocation to aggression. No one will dictate our lives to us. We established a life of freedom in this country and we will protect it with all the power at our disposal."

"Nobody gave us this country as a gift," stressed Begin. "We shed our blood. This entire nation shed its blood so that it would arise and so that it would exist. No foreign soldier, not from America or France or anywhere else, died for us for 32 years. When we were surrounded by enemies and when we stood in battle in difficult days, we never once asked for a single soldier to come and save us. Equipment? - Yes. Is it a shame to ask for equipment? Everyone needs help in this area. But soldiers? We were the fighters for Israel's freedom, we were the soldiers, and I mean all Israelis who defended its independence."

Additionally, ahead of the passage of the Law, Begin told the cabinet "I am sure that the USA will send us a protest, let us know that this is a unilateral step, it does not recognize unilateral steps and it thinks that this step is not valid. I think that this is how sovereignty is expressed, that we are doing a sovereign act, with all due respect to the US, our great friend...But this is about our lives and our future. Who can dictate to us, after 15 whole years since the end of the Six Day War, after all the refusals to talk to us? But we will live and respond as we should."

In March 2019, then-president Trump signed a presidential proclamation recognizing the Golan Heights as under Israeli sovereignty, making the US the first country to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the area. 

In the proclamation, Trump wrote "Any possible future peace agreement in the region must account for Israel’s need to protect itself from Syria and other regional threats.  Based on these unique circumstances, it is, therefore, appropriate to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights."

In the months after the proclamation, the Israeli government approved the establishment of a town in the Golan Heights called Ramat Trump (Trump Heights). A few families have since moved into the town.