President Donald Trump has said that Israel would "lose all support" from the United States if it annexed the West Bank.
The comments, published today by Time magazine, date from an interview Trump gave on October 15, before the Knesset passed a bill on Wednesday that would apply Israeli sovereignty to all settlements in the West Bank.
"It's not going to happen because I gave the word to the Arab countries" as part of the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Trump said in an interview.
He also spoke about how he pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept his peace plan for Gaza.
US Vice President J.D. Vance said today that Trump will oppose the annexation of the occupied West Bank and that it will not happen, describing the move by Israeli lawmakers in that direction as a stupid "political show".
A bill to apply Israeli law to the West Bank, which would amount to annexing territory that Palestinians consider part of a future independent state, received preliminary approval from the Israeli parliament on Wednesday. Asked by reporters about the vote, Vance said: "If it was a political stunt, then it's very stupid, and it offends me personally to some extent."
Vance spoke after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that moves to annex territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war could jeopardize Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza, which has so far yielded a fragile ceasefire.
"Israel will not annex the West Bank. President Trump's policy is that the West Bank will not be annexed. That will always be our policy," Vance said at the end of a two-day visit to Israel.
Netanyahu's Likud party did not vote for the bill, the statement said, noting that without its support, attempts to legally implement the annexation of the West Bank are unlikely to bear fruit.
The vote was initiated by a far-right opposition MP, who until recently was part of the ruling right-wing coalition, and was supported by ultranationalists, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Netanyahu's cabinet later said the vote was a "deliberate political provocation" aimed at causing divisions during Vance's visit.
Netanyahu's Likud party did not vote for the bill, the statement said, noting that without its support, attempts to legally implement the annexation of the West Bank are unlikely to bear fruit.
Netanyahu's cabinet had been considering the idea of annexation in response to decisions by several Western allies to recently recognize a Palestinian state, in order to pressure Israel to end the devastating war in Gaza, but it appears to have abandoned the idea after Trump objected last month.
Hundreds of thousands of people live in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The United Nations and much of the international community consider the settlements illegal under international law. The Israeli government, however, cites biblical and historical ties to the West Bank, which it considers disputed territory, and opposes any move toward establishing Palestinian statehood.
Settlements are an extremely sensitive issue that has been a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East for decades, as they divide the territory on which the Palestinians want to build a viable state.
Wednesday's vote was the first of four needed for the bill to pass, and coincided with Vance's visit to Israel, a month after Trump declared that he would not allow Israel to annex the territory.
Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey and 13 other Muslim-majority countries condemned the vote, as did key multilateral organizations representing Arab and Muslim countries.
Trump hopes his Gaza plan will bring stability to the Middle East and expand the normalization agreements known as the "Abraham Accords" between Israel and Arab states like the United Arab Emirates to include regional power Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom has repeatedly stated that it will not conclude an agreement with Israel without the formation of a Palestinian state.
Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem, Smotrich stated that if normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia is conditioned on the creation of a Palestinian state, Israel should reject such an offer and the Saudis should "continue riding camels."
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