Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa says he told President Donald Trump that if he wants to give Israel some territory, he should hand over New Jersey and leave the Golan Heights alone.
Al-Sharaa, speaking at an Atlantic Council event in New York on Tuesday, recounted the exchange while discussing Trump’s 2019 decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
“President Trump stood to the side of Syria, supported Syria and issued a historic resolution or decision to lift sanctions off Syria,” al-Sharaa said. “And I have a very unique relationship with him.”
But that unique relationship apparently includes some ribbing about New Jersey.
“But once when I visited him in the White House, I made a joke with him,” al-Sharaa said. “And when he said about the Golan Heights that it has sovereignty of Israel, I said, why don’t you give New Jersey to the Israelis?”
His argument was that Trump had no Golan Heights to give away.
“You don’t own Golan Heights to give it to them, but you own New Jersey,” al-Sharaa told Trump.
And then the Syrian president brought Garden State politics into international diplomacy.
“And I believe that New Jersey is full of Democrats and they are not voting for Trump,” he said. “So, it will be good to give it to the Israelis.”
Al-Sharaa has the numbers on his side: New Jersey has 883,036 more registered Democrats than Republicans, a Democratic governor and two Democratic U.S. senators, and Democratic majorities of 9-3 in its House delegation, 25-15 in the State Senate, and 57-23 in the Assembly.
“At least this is something that you own,” al-Sharaa said. “But President Trump doesn’t own the Golan Heights.”
Al-Sharaa then turned from the punchline to the serious point he was making about Syrian sovereignty.
“So regardless of this joke, the Golan Heights is owned by its own people,” he said. “So, it’s neither the Syrian president or the American president or any other person to abandon them or to give them to others.”
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and effectively annexed the territory in 1981, a move rejected by the United Nations Security Council. Trump formally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy.
Al-Sharaa is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly and made his comments at the Atlantic Council in New York. It was first reported by Clash Report.