Washington: US President Donald Trump warned that Israel could lose crucial backing from the United States if it moves ahead with the annexation of the occupied West Bank.
In a Time magazine interview published Thursday, Trump said the consequences would be severe, emphasizing that his previous assurances to Arab countries constrained such a move.
“It won’t happen. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. And you can’t do that now. We’ve had great Arab support,” Trump said in comments made via telephone on October 15. “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”
Trump also expressed optimism that Saudi Arabia could join the Abraham Accords, which normalise relations between Israel and Arab states, by the end of the year. “Yes, I do. I do,” he said.
Referring to Israel’s war in Gaza and Iran’s nuclear program, he added, “See they had a problem. They had a Gaza problem and they had an Iran problem. Now they don’t have those two problems.”
The president further indicated he would decide on whether Israel should release high-profile Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti, from the rival Fatah movement, as part of broader peace moves.
Trump’s remarks came as he dispatched top US officials to Israel to reinforce the fragile Gaza reinforce the fragile Gaza ceasefire he helped broker earlier this month.
Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance criticized Israel’s parliament for a symbolic vote on Wednesday supporting the annexation of the West Bank. The narrow 25-24 vote was seen as an attempt by hard-liners to embarrass Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposes annexation, while Vance was still in the country.
On departing Israel, Vance called the move “a very stupid political stunt” and said he “personally takes some insult to it.” He reiterated that the policy of the Trump administration opposes annexation of the West Bank.
Republican Senator and former Secretary of State Marco Rubio also warned that steps taken by the Knesset and settler violence threatened the Gaza truce.
Netanyahu is struggling to stave off early elections as cracks between factions in the right-wing parties, some of whom were upset over the ceasefire and the security sacrifices it required of Israel, grow more apparent.
While many members of Netanyahu’s coalition, including the Likud, support annexation, they have backed off those calls since U.S. President Donald Trump said last month that he opposes such a move. The United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. and Israeli ally in the push to peace in Gaza, has said any annexation by Israel would be a “red line.”
The Palestinians seek the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future independent state. Israeli annexation of the West Bank would all but bury hopes for a two-state solutDion between Israel and the Palestinians — the outcome supported by most of the world.
