Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Trump administration to recognize Israeli sovereignty in the occupied Golan Heights, which the international community regards as Syrian territory that has been under Israel's control since 1967's Six-Day War, after the U.S. military's pullout from Syria, an Israeli official tells me.
The backdrop: Netanyahu already raised the issue several months ago in a meeting with President Trump and with other senior U.S. officials. At the time, the Trump administration was cool on the idea and didn't signal to Israel that it was seriously considering such a move as it was concerned by a possible harsh reaction from Russia, the main international player in Syria and a staunch ally of the Assad regime, which claims Israel must withdraw from the Golan Heights.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said that the Trump administration's long-awaited Middle East peace plan would be delayed "for several months" on Sunday, per the Jerusalem Post.
Background: Friedman's comments confirm Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement last week that the U.S. had decided to delay the peace plan's release until after Israel's early elections on April 9. The Trump administration has long been coy on when the plan — which President Trump previously said he wanted published by February — will finally be released publicly with Friedman stating in November that it would come at the "appropriate time."
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church formally split from the Russian church on Saturday in a signing ceremony in Turkey, the Associated Press reports.
Why it matters: As Alex Kliment of GZERO Media notes, "[t]his is a spiritual matter with distinctly worldly implications." The new split will make Ukrainian clerics "pick sides between the Moscow-backed Ukrainian churches and the new church," while fighting continues between Ukrainian and Russian forces, AP reports.
More peculiar details continue to come out about Paul Whelan, the former U.S. Marine arrested and charged with espionage while reportedly traveling to a wedding in Moscow last week.
Driving the news: Whelan, who is facing 20 years in a Russian prison, holds Canadian, British and Irish passports — a fact that threatens to drive a wedge between Russia and four Western countries that have now sought consular access. In 2006, Whelan was arrested for attempting to steal more than $10,000 of government money while on deployment in Iraq, the Washington Post reports. He was convicted and discharged for bad conduct in 2008.
