Trump Vows to Pull Israel Support if it Annexes West Bank
President Donald Trump has said that Israel would lose “all support” from the United States if it tried to move ahead with annexing the occupied West Bank.
“It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries… Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened,” Trump told TIME magazine in an interview published on Thursday.
A bill applying Israeli law to the West Bank, a move tantamount to annexation of a territory that Palestinians seek for part of a future independent state, won preliminary approval from Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday.
US Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday Trump would oppose Israeli annexation of the West Bank and it would not happen, suggesting a move by Israeli lawmakers toward that end looked like a stupid “political stunt.”
Vance spoke after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that steps toward annexing the territory, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, could endanger Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war, which has yielded a shaky ceasefire so far.
