Trump: Israel Would ‘Lose All of Its Support from the U.S.’ If It Annexed Judea, Samaria

Israel “would lose all of its support from the United States” if it annexed Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank, according to remarks by President Donald Trump on Thursday.

Trump was responding to a controversial bill pushed by right-wing opposition members in Israel’s parliament, or Knesset, that would annex the disputed territory in response to Palestinian terror.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who favors Jewish settlement in the territory, does not support the annexation bill, as it would alienate the Arab and Muslim states that have joined the Abraham Accords and the Gaza ceasefire deal.

As Breitbart News reported earlier Thursday, Netanyahu came out in strong opposition to the bill, blasting members of the opposition for introducing it as a deliberate “provocation” during the visit of U.S. Vice President JD Vance. (Vance slammed the bill as a personal “insult.”)

The Times of Israel reported:

The comments published Thursday by Time magazine were made by Trump during an October 15 interview, prior to the Knesset’s passage on Wednesday — in a preliminary reading and against the prime minister’s wishes — of a bill that would apply Israeli sovereignty to all West Bank settlements. Underlining the administration’s lack of patience for such efforts, Trump’s deputy JD Vance said Thursday as he departed Israel that the previous day’s vote had offended him and was “very stupid.”

“It won’t happen. It won’t happen,” Trump told Time, referring to annexation. “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.”

…

Vance said he was told it was a “political stunt” and “purely symbolic,” but that it was a “very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it.”

The United Arab Emirates, which led Arab and Muslim nations into the Abraham Accords, has long opposed the annexation of the West Bank, saying that it would make future regional peace negotiations impossible.