The Day

Trump warns Israel against annexing parts of West Bank.

- By JOSEF FEDERMAN

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 defense 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, Defense 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, shortly before departing for a working visit to the U.S.

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, a position that has wide internatio­nal backing.

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.

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