West Jerusalem was taken by surprise by the admonition, the Washington Post has reported
A public warning from the United Arab Emirates prompted the Israeli government to drop a planned discussion on annexing the West Bank, the Washington Post has reported. A senior UAE diplomat reportedly told Israeli media earlier this week that the move would be a “red line” that would block Israel’s path to regional integration.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to discuss the issue at a major government meeting on Friday, according to local media. On Wednesday, UAE special envoy Lana Nusseibeh told the Times of Israel that annexation would “foreclose the idea of regional integration.”
“For every Arab capital you talk to, the idea of regional integration is still a possibility, but annexation to satisfy some of the radical extremist elements in Israel is going to take that off the table,” she stated.
The UAE was the first Arab nation to normalize relations with Israel in over a quarter of a century under the Abraham Accords brokered by US President Donald Trump during his first term in office.
The public warning from Abu Dhabi “came as a surprise,” an Israeli official told the Post, calling the situation “very unusual.”
On Thursday, the issue of annexation was removed from the Israeli ministerial meeting agenda, according to the newspaper.
Washington has not taken a stance on the issue so far. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described potential annexation as “not a final thing” earlier this week, adding that he was “not going to opine on that.”
The West Bank returned to the spotlight earlier this year after a group of Israeli ministers urged that the territory be formally annexed. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claimed control could be asserted at any moment.
Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has been actively building settlements there – which is widely regarded as illegal by the international community. It was close to annexation in 2020 but dropped the idea in exchange for normalizing relations with the UAE and Bahrain.
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