Trump's vow to block occupied West Bank annexation 'co-ordinated with Israel'

US leader's comments could help Netanyahu manage far-right, claims analyst

A Palestinian man sitting at a cafe table by a mural on the Israeli separation barrier in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem. EPA

US President Donald Trump's assertion that he would block Israel from annexing the West Bank is believed to be a move co-ordinated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ahead of the premier's visit to New York.

“I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope. I will not allow it,” Mr Trump said on Thursday, two days after meeting Arab leaders at the UN. “It's not going to happen … There's been enough. It's time to stop now. OK?"

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last month presented a plan to annex the majority of the West Bank, urging Mr Netanyahu to “make a historic decision to apply Israeli sovereignty to all open areas in Judea and Samaria” – as Israel calls the territory.

Israel has taken other steps in recent weeks that undermine the prospect of a Palestinian state, in particular approving the construction of E1, an illegal settlement with thousands of homes near Jerusalem.

But Israeli analyst Kobi Michael, of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies think tank, believes Mr Trump's comments are not in defiance of Mr Netanyahu, but in co-ordination with him.

“Netanyahu understands that annexation now would be problematic for the substantial and essential national interest of Israel and this is a very comfortable way to deal with the extreme wing or right wing of his coalition when it comes from Trump,” Mr Michael told The National.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu governs with the support of far-right parties. EPA

Ayman Odeh, a Palestinian-Israeli member of the Knesset, said that despite Mr Trump's comments, the US had backed Israeli policies that amounted to a “de facto annexation” of the West Bank.

That policy has been “carried out through ethnic cleansing, persecution, occupation, and apartheid,” Mr Odeh said. “All of this has been fully supported by the United States.”

From the Palestinian side, a former mayor of the West Bank city of Tulkarm, Salah Aref, said the two men's long-standing relationship and agreement on other issues, such as Iran, Palestinian statehood and the status of Jerusalem, are evidence of yet another position being taken in lockstep.

So, with the US President appearing to be staunchly in opposition to Palestinian rights, the recent apparent shift in positions is only being made to keep up with changing global tides, Mr Aref added.

Talal Abu Rubka, a political analyst in Gaza, agreed that Mr Trump's comments on the West Bank could “curb the ambitions of the Zionist right” in Israel. But he said it was “impossible to rely on Trump's contradictory statements”, and unclear whether he “genuinely intends” to prevent annexation.

“This statement does not mean the cancellation of annexation,” he said. “If such a decision were to happen, it would have significant repercussions on Gaza.

“If Trump adopts such a position, he might still give Netanyahu enough opportunity and space to do what he wants in Gaza, pushing towards a dramatic resolution of the situation, or towards separating Gaza from the West Bank.”

Mr Trump is set to meet the Israeli Prime Minister, who is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court – and took a longer route on his way to New York, avoiding some critical countries, such as France and Spain, along the way.

The two European nations are among 10 that have newly recognised Palestine as a state at the UN General Assembly, pushed for a two-state solution and put pressure on Israel for an end to the bloodshed in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, wounded 167,300 others and forcibly displaced nearly the entire 2.2 million population.

“The US is a large field for the Zionist movement and in my assessment, the US has inevitably to succumb to the changing global position, eventually,” Mr Aref said.

With the outcome of the Trump-Netanyahu meeting on Monday yet to be seen, the question is whether the impact of the US meeting with Arab leaders, which produced a 21-point plan to bring peace to the region, would hold and materialise into a ceasefire in Gaza, and a step closer to an independent Palestine.