Netanyahu Seeks Agreement With U.S. to Annex West Bank Land Before Election
Netanyahu Seeks Agreement With U.S. to Annex West Bank Land Before Election
(Bloomberg) -- Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is trying to iron out differences with the U.S. in time to annex West Bank territory before Israel’s March 2 election, a senior Israeli official said.
The Trump administration has a different idea on how and when that move should happen, and has persuaded Israel to put a brake on Netanyahu’s plan to annex next week, the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
When President Donald Trump unveiled his Middle East peace plan on Tuesday, he said the U.S. would immediately recognize an extension of Israeli sovereignty over all Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley. Netanyahu, who is lagging in the polls after failing twice to form a government last year, interpreted that as a green light to annex those territories. He then announced he’d ask his cabinet to vote on the issue -- which has widespread support in Israel -- as early as Sunday.
It’s not clear why Netanyahu made that deduction, given that Trump said a joint U.S.-Israeli committee would have to review any annexation plan. But Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and architect of the peace blueprint, scuttled Israel’s timetable, saying in an interview with analyst Ian Bremmer on Wednesday that the administration hoped the Israeli government wouldn’t take action until after the vote and a government is formed.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
While the prime minister wants the Trump plan to give him an edge ahead of that election, unilateral annexation would sap the Palestinians’ dream of an independent homeland with the West Bank as its heart. The state of Palestine envisaged by Trump -- which Netanyahu played a core role in conceptualizing -- would incorporate only 70% of the territory, far less than previous peace plans the Palestinians rejected.
Israel is still working to take over territory before the vote, the official said. The concept of annexing land in the West Bank, where more than 400,000 settlers live among 2.6 million Palestinians, had been unthinkable for decades, because of its questionable legality and the international outcry it would provoke. Support from the Trump administration has now freed Israel to act.
The Israeli government is trying to persuade the U.S. to allow a piecemeal approach, whereby Israel would present the Trump team smaller areas to be annexed, according to the official. That would allow it to start taking action faster, because there would be fewer details for the joint committee to review.
The U.S. would prefer Israel to annex the allotted areas in one go, that way concentrating the consequences of supporting such a controversial move in a short period, the official said.
The unveiling of Trump’s peace plan hasn’t given Netanyahu, who’s facing trial in three corruption cases, the boost he needs to stay in office, the latest polls show.
Facing a third election in less than a year, he still won’t be able to muster enough support to form a coalition government, according to three surveys released on Wednesday by Israeli television stations.
Netanyahu’s right wing-religious camp was either neck and neck with the center-left-Arab bloc that supports Gantz, or slightly behind. Neither commands a majority in parliament.
--With assistance from Josh Wingrove.
To contact the reporter on this story: Yaacov Benmeleh in Tel Aviv at ybenmeleh@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, ;Riad Hamade at rhamade@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Amy Teibel
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