At a cabinet meeting on June 14, President Trump’s 74th birthday,  the Israeli government approved plans to invest $2.3 million to develop the town and build 300 new houses in Ramat Trump (Trump Heights).

At the meeting. Netanyahu said that Israel would “begin practical steps in establishing the community of Ramat Trump on the Golan Heights, Israel’s sovereignty over which was recognized by President Trump.”

The settlement in the Golan was named to honor the US president last year after he signed an executive order recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the region that was captured in the defensive Six-Day War in 1967.

This is the second community in Israel named after a sitting US president, the first being Kfar Truman in central Israel which was established as Bnei Harel in 1949 and renamed in 1950. The forest alongside Kfar Truman was renamed for Margaret Truman, daughter of the president.

Ramat Trump will represent a new section of the town of Kela Alon which currently has a population of about 300 people. Approximately half of the Golan’s 50,000 residents are Druze, who speak Arabic but originated in Western Asia, differentiation them ethnically from the Arabs who, as their name implies, originated in the Arabian peninsula. The Druze do not identify as Muslims and consider themselves to be descendants of the Prophet Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. 

There are no Palestinians in the Golan Heights.