US President Donald Trump has stated that he will not allow Israel to annex the occupied West Bank.
“I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope, I will not allow it. It’s not going to happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, adding, “There’s been enough. It’s time to stop now.”
Trump made these remarks ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's arrival in New York, where he is scheduled to deliver an address to the United Nations on Friday.
According to Politico, Trump had assured Arab and Muslim leaders on Tuesday that he would not permit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the West Bank. The report, citing six people familiar with the discussion, said that Trump was firm on the matter and had promised that Israel would not be allowed to absorb the West Bank, which is governed by the Palestinian Authority rather than Hamas.
When asked whether he had discussed his stance with Netanyahu, Trump was noncommittal.
“Yeah, but I’m not going to allow it. Whether I spoke to him or not, I’m not allowing Israel to annex the West Bank. There’s been enough. It’s time to stop now, OK?” the president said.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mouin Rabbani, an analyst and non-resident fellow at the Qatar-based Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, called Trump’s statement a “positive” development, but expressed skepticism about whether the president would follow through.
“One attaches value to Trump’s words at their own peril,” Rabbani said.
“So the question now becomes: is he going to ensure that Israel does not annex the West Bank? And if it does, what will he do about it? Will his mind perhaps be changed by another conversation that he has?”
Israel has already advanced a highly controversial settlement plan that would effectively divide the West Bank, further undermining the territorial continuity of a future Palestinian state, NBC News reported.
Meanwhile, there has been a surge in deadly settler violence and intensified Israeli military operations across the Palestinian territories, it added.