PA slams US envoy over annexation remarks,

An interview with Friedman in honor of the second anniversary of the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem will be featured in Friday’s Post.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to visit Israel for one day next week, a source confirmed. It would be the first diplomatic visit since Israel closed its borders because of the coronavirus outbreak.

He is expected to discuss annexation with Netanyahu, though that is not the purpose of the visit, an American source said.

The first condition for the US to back Israel applying sovereignty to all settlements, biblical sites and the Jordan Valley is the completion of a map by the joint US-Israeli committee, which began working in February, Friedman said. The committee met in recent weeks, he said. It is on track to finish the mapping, pending “judgment calls in Israel’s court,” by July 1, the date Netanyahu set for annexation in his coalition agreement with Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.

The second condition,

Knesset’s time with the amendments.

“We are finally ending the political dead end,” he said while introducing the bills.

Once the bills pass, Blue and White will join 52 MKs in Netanyahu’s Right-Center bloc recommending him to form a government. President Reuven Rivlin is expected to give him a two-week mandate to do so.

If the signatures of 61 MKs supporting Netanyahu are not submitted by Thursday night, Israel would automatically go to an election in August. An election would also take place if Netanyahu does not complete the formation of a government within two weeks after Rivlin gives him the mandate.

Ahead of the votes, the opposition took turns bashing the soon-to-be-formed coalition in hours of speeches.

“The only driving force behind this deal is the division of the spoils,” said presumptive opposition leader Yair Lapid. “You’re attacking Israel’s democracy. You’re taking apart our shared values. You’re creating a total loss of public trust in politics. You’re wasting hundreds of millions of shekels on jobs and perks.”

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman tried to embarrass the prime minister by reading aloud from a Netanyahu speech