Trump says he will pull US support if Israel annexes West Bank
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Closed iron gates set up by Israeli forces at the main entrance to Hares village near Salfit city, West Bank.
PHOTO: EPA
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said Israel would lose its crucial backing from the United States if it annexes the occupied West Bank, in a Time magazine interview published Thursday.
Mr Trump’s comments, which Time said were made by telephone on Oct 15, were published as both Vice-President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned against any annexation.
“It won’t happen. 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,” Mr Trump said when asked what the consequences would be for Israel if it did so.
“Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”
Mr Trump also told Time that he believed Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham Accords, which normalise relations between Israel and Arab states,
“Yes, I do. I do,” he said when asked if he thought Riyadh would join in that timeframe.
“See they had a problem. They had a Gaza problem and they had an Iran problem. Now they don’t have those two problems,” he said, referring to Israel’s war in Gaza and Iran’s nuclear program, which US airstrikes targeted earlier this year.
Mr Trump then said that he would be “making a decision” on whether Israel should release high-profile Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti as part of peace moves.
Mr Barghouti – from Hamas’s rival, the Fatah movement – was among the Palestinian prisoners Hamas wanted to see released as part of the Gaza deal, according to Egyptian state-linked media.
Mr Trump has dispatched a stream of top officials to Israel in recent days to shore up the fragile Gaza ceasefire he brokered earlier this month.
But as Mr Vance wrapped up his three-day visit and Mr Rubio arrived, Israeli lawmakers advanced two bills paving the way for West Bank annexation.
Mr Vance said it was a “very stupid political stunt and I personally take some insult to it.”
As Mr Rubio left Washington he warned Israel against annexing the West Bank, saying steps taken by parliament and settler violence threatened the Gaza truce. AFP
