The main faces of Donald Trump’s Administration, which these days are dividing their presence in Israel in turns to safeguard efforts in Gaza, have warned this Thursday that a possible move (preliminary approved the day before by Parliament) could jeopardize the ceasefire. Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, has described it as a “threat” to the agreement. And the vice president, JD Vance, has ended a three-day visit “offended” by the coincidence of the vote – which he described as “very stupid” – and making it clear that “Trump’s policy is that the West Bank is not going to be annexed.”
The opposition forced it (in reality, it would not need to go through the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament) against the will of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Executive to show its colors during the carousel of diplomatic visits of its great ally. In fact, in an interview with the magazine Time carried out before the vote and released this Thursday, Trump made it clear that the annexation “will not happen” and that, if Israel dares to approve it, it will lose “all the support” of the United States.
The vote has ended up becoming the hot topic, clouding optimism about the ceasefire in Gaza deployed by Trump’s envoys since Monday and forcing even Netanyahu to speak out. All of this, despite the fact that it was preliminary (it still requires three more votes) and dispensable, because the Government could approve it on its own and, in any case, it has been promoting it on the ground, in order to avoid international criticism. The West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation since the 1967 Six-Day War.
Trump already expressed his opposition last month, after meeting with representatives of Arab and Muslim countries. He has now reiterated it with identical clarity in the interview with Time: “It won’t happen. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. And that can’t be done now. We’ve had great Arab support. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. It won’t happen. Israel would lose all US support if that happened.”
Vance reinforced this position this Thursday at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, by ending his visit. It has placed the White House at the opposite end of the annexation that part of Netanyahu’s government coalition dreams of applying in the West Bank, one of the three Palestinian territories – along with the Strip and East Jerusalem as the capital – that should form a Palestinian State, according to international law.
“The policy of the Trump Administration is and will continue to be that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel,” the vice president said. Israel already annexed the Golan Heights, Syrian territory, and East Jerusalem in the 1980s. The bulk of the international community still does not recognize the decision and considers both territories as militarily occupied.
Vance has also claimed to feel “offended” by the “stupid political maneuver” in Parliament during his presence in the country. He has thus joined the position of Likud, Netanyahu’s party, which tried to remove it from the agenda while he was in Israel.
“Sowing discord”
The noise has led Netanyahu’s office to come forward with a statement, in which he described the vote as a “deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord” during Vance’s visit. The Israeli prime minister recalled that only one member of his party, Yuli Edelstein, who was recently expelled from the presidency of the Knesset Committee, supported her. “Without Likud support, it is unlikely that these laws will go anywhere,” he said.
The episode recalls him, then as Barack Obama’s vice president. Hours before landing in Israel, an Interior Ministry committee approved the construction of 1,600 houses in Ramat Shlomo, a colony in East Jerusalem. Netanyahu (also then in power) distanced himself from the measure, but Biden saw it as a lack of respect, precisely in the midst of promoting peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Biden criticized “the substance and timing of the announcement” and assured that it “undermined the necessary trust” between the parties.
Vance crossed paths in the air with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the last of successive visits by senior US officials to keep the ceasefire afloat. “We believe that [la anexión israelí de Cisjordania] could threaten the peace agreement,” he said before boarding the plane. “The president has made it clear that this is not something that would have our support at this time.” Rubio met late on Thursday with Netanyahu and made a brief statement to the press in line with the rest of the White House envoys who preceded him this week. He was “confident and positive regarding the progress” of the ceasefire in Gaza, but clarified that “no one lives in a mirage” about the “challenges” and “substantial obstacles” that still mark the path.
On September 26, Trump referred for the first time to a possible annexation of the West Bank, which he wants a part of the Likud and Jewish Power). “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. This will not happen,” he said in the Oval Office. The forceful response responded to questions about whether his Administration had made a commitment to leaders of the Arab and Islamic world on this matter.
For decades, in any case, the situation on the ground in the West Bank has been far from resembling Palestinian sovereignty. Successive Israeli governments of different political stripes have been favoring the presence of settlers in the territory, which has grown to exceed 700,000, including East Jerusalem. The NGO Peace Now, which continues its growth, estimates that there are 340 Israeli settlements in just over 5,600 square kilometers, less than the Community of Madrid. International law considers them illegal. The settlers are favored by networks of roads, water or electricity of prohibited or limited use for the Palestinians, subject to military rule and with the
