DON’T TRY TO ANNEX WEST BANK, U.S. WARNS ISRAEL
JERUSALEM • The Trump administration has explicitly warned Israel against annexing parts of the occupied West Bank, saying it would trigger an “immediate crisis” between the two close allies, Israel’s defence minister said Monday.
It was the latest indication that President Donald Trump is returning to more traditional U.S. policy and will not give Israel free rein to expand its control over the West Bank and sideline the Palestinians, as Israeli nationalists had hoped.
Speaking in parliament, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said U.S. officials had been clear in their opposition to Israeli annexation of West Bank land — a notion that has gained steam in far-right Israeli circles since Trump’s election.
“We received a direct message — not an indirect message and not a hint — from the United States. Imposing Israeli sovereignty on Judea and Samaria would mean an immediate crisis with the new administration,” Lieberman said. Judea and Samaria is the biblical term for the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek the West Bank as the heartland of a future state.
The angry U.S. reaction was sparked by comments by Miki Zohar, a junior lawmaker in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nationalist Likud Party. Zohar is among a growing number of coalition members who reject the internationally backed idea of a Palestinian state and instead suggested that Israel annex the West Bank.
Under this version of a “one-state” scenario, the West Bank’s more than 2 million Palestinians would receive expanded autonomy, but not hold full Israeli citizenship or be allowed to vote for the Knesset, or parliament. Although Netanyahu has not endorsed the one-state vision, many in his coalition do.
Lieberman said he received phone calls “from the entire world” about whether Zohar’s proposal reflected the government’s position. He called on the coalition to “clarify very clearly that there is no intention to impose Israeli sovereignty.”
For the past two decades, the international community has said the two-state solution is the only way to preserve Israel’s Jewish and democratic character. Supporters of Israel’s moderate opposition strongly agree. Likewise, the world has almost universally condemned Israeli settlements built on occupied land as obstacles to peace.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to turn this international consensus on its head, raising great hope among Israel’s right wing.
Trump’s campaign platform made no mention of a Palestinian state. He also promised to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a move long sought by Israel but fiercely opposed by the Palestinians.