 "'Israel would lose all support from US’: Trump fires warning over West Bank annexation")
US President Donald Trump has dealt a major blow to the Israeli right’s plan to apply sovereignty over parts of the West Bank, warning that Israel would lose “all support” from the United States if it pursued annexation.
According to a Times of Israel report, citing the remarks published on Thursday by Time magazine, came during an October 15 interview, before the Knesset’s preliminary approval of a bill on Wednesday to extend Israeli sovereignty to all West Bank settlements — against the prime minister’s wishes.
Highlighting the administration’s frustration, Trump’s deputy JD Vance said on Thursday, as he left Israel, that the recent vote had offended him and was “very stupid.”
“It won’t happen. It won’t happen,” Trump was quoted as saying to 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,” added Trump.
Trump had already ruled out such a move last month, saying, “I’m not allowing Israel to annex the West Bank. There’s been enough. It’s time to stop now.”
But the comments published on Thursday marked his strongest warning yet that he would not tolerate the move.
Also in the Time interview, Trump said he believed Israel and Saudi Arabia would normalise ties by the end of the year.
“They had a Gaza problem and they had an Iran problem. Now they don’t have those two problems,” he said.
He did not provide further details on how this would be achieved, especially given Riyadh’s insistence that normalisation is directly linked to Palestinian statehood, which remains a non-starter for Israel.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsOn Wednesday, the Knesset passed two bills — one to annex all settlements and another to annex a major city-settlement — both pushed by right-wing opposition lawmakers.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and most of his Likud party opposed the bills, but they passed thanks to Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners and Likud members who abstained, unwilling to oppose a popular base issue.
The legislation now faces committee review and three more Knesset votes to become law — a highly unlikely outcome given Trump’s clear veto threat.
At Ben Gurion Airport, Vice President Vance called the vote “weird” and “very stupid,” saying he felt “some insult” over what he called a “political stunt” that was “purely symbolic.”
“The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel,” Times of Israel quoted Vance as saying. “That will continue to be our policy… we certainly weren’t happy about it,” he added.
Though Vance’s sharp remarks grabbed headlines, they seemed offhand, made in response to a question after his press conference had ended.
Vance wasn’t the first senior US official to publicly criticise the vote.
Ahead of his visit to Israel, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Knesset’s move toward annexing the West Bank could threaten President Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
“They passed a vote in the Knesset, but the president has made clear that’s not something we’d be supportive of right now,” Rubio told reporters before taking off for Israel.
“We think there’s potential for [it to be even] threatening to the peace deal,” he added.
Meanwhile, Rubio landed in Israel on Thursday, according to AFP, the latest in a string of US officials to visit the country to shore up the Gaza ceasefire.
According to a US official, Rubio will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later on Thursday.
With inputs from agencies
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