Amid U.S. pressure, Israel delays boost-Jerusalem bid

JERUSALEM — Under pressure from the United States, Israel has delayed a bill that would connect a number of West Bank settlements to Jerusalem, officials said Sunday.

The bill aims to solidify the city’s Jewish majority, but stops short of formal annexation.

The bill says the communities would be considered “daughter municipalities” of Jerusalem.

Israel’s hard-line government has been emboldened by the Trump administration’s more sympathetic approach to Israel and its settlement enterprise than that of president Barack Obama. The draft bill is part of a series of pro-settler steps the government has taken in recent months.

Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to remain in President Donald Trump’s good graces.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper quoted Netanyahu as saying Israel needs to co-ordinate the bill with the U.S.

“The Americans turned to us and inquired what the bill was about. As we have been co-ordinating with them until now, it is worth (to continue) talking and co-ordinating with them. We are working to promote and develop the settlement enterprise,” it quoted Netanyahu as saying at a government meeting Sunday.

Earlier Sunday, David Bitan, the Likud party’s parliamentary whip and a close Netanyahu ally, told Israeli Army Radio the vote was delayed because “there is American pressure claiming this is annexation.”

Trump has sent an envoy, Jason Greenblatt, to attempt to breathe life into moribund peace talks, which collapsed under U.S. tutelage in 2014.