President Donald Trump said the United States would cut ties with Israel if the Jewish state attempted to annex the West Bank.
Trump made the remark in an interview with Time magazine conducted Oct. 15 at the White House and published Thursday. The interview occurred about a week before Israel’s Knesset advanced legislation to annex the territory.
“It won’t happen. It won’t happen,” Trump told Time. “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. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. It will not happen. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”
In what is seen as an embarrassment to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Knesset on Wednesday gave preliminary approval to a bill that would extend Israeli sovereignty to all West Bank settlements, The Times of Israel reported. It also passed a more limited bill to annex a major settlement city.
The votes came despite opposition from Netanyahu and most of his Likud party. They argued the move was ill-timed, given the fragility of a ceasefire deal brokered by the Trump administration between Israel and Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists.
Vice President JD Vance said Thursday, before leaving Israel, that he was “insulted” by the Knesset vote. Vance told reporters on the tarmac of the Tel Aviv airport that he was told the measure was merely symbolic and part of a “political stunt with no practical significance.”
“If it was a political stunt, it was a stupid one, and I take some insult to it,” Vance said.
He emphasized that the Trump administration’s policy is that “the West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday night that the Knesset’s move toward annexation could threaten Trump’s plan to end the two-year-old conflict in the Gaza Strip.
“The president has made clear that’s not something we’d be supportive of right now,” Rubio told reporters before departing for Israel. “We think there’s potential for [it to be] threatening to the peace deal.”
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