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Notes -
Morocco occupied and annexed Western Sahara in 1975. In 2020, her sovereignty over Western Sahara was recognized by the US:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/united-states-recognizes-moroccos-sovereignty-over-western-sahara/36A7A41EC0BB341D79CE4661EDD8B60E
From 1975 to 2002, East Timor was annexed by Indonesia, as recognized by the US and other nations.
China annexed Tibet in 1950.
Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1973, as recognized by the US in 2019, as you also mentioned. The US also recognized unified Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, partially annexed in 1967.
Let's not pretend there is a big difference.
It's true, annexations have happened. However, my understanding is that, apart from annexation of Tibet (where PRC actually just implemented a previous claim by former Chinese states and annexed a de facto country whose independence had never been recognized by other countries), none of these were actually formally accepted by the international community, apart from Golan by US. Western Sahara continues to be on UN's list of unrecognized countries, and my understanding is - if someone has any better info - even though US supported the Indonesian regime behind the schemes, formally it never went against UN's view that East Timor was an occupied territory. Similarly, an important thing regarding Crimea (and Luhansk, Donetsk etc.) is that the international community, apart from some Russian allied states and a handful of Third World countries, has not accepted the annexation of Crimea or the independence of LPR/DPR - there still is a difference between their de facto status and their de jure status in the eyes of the world.
Incidentally, all four of the mentioned causes have been major Western progressive cause celebrés at some point or another, one could barely crack open a book by Chomsky in the 90s without East Timor being mentioned and I have personal experience of Western Sahara solidarity becoming a thing on Finnish left-wing youth circles at a time. As such, that made it easier for many leftists in Finland to take the same stance regarding the illegitimate occupation of the Ukrainian territories by Russia.
That's all true. We can definitely apply nuance if we want to. Of course, we can also say that the annexation of the Crimea was merely the case of implementing the pre-1954 claim of the Russian SFSR.
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