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President Donald Trump reiterated his supposed opposition to the idea of Israel annexing the occupied West Bank on Thursday, with the president threatening to withhold aid — while ignoring Israel’s ongoing de facto annexation campaign and his vast role in enabling it.
In response to a question on Israeli annexation in an interview with Time Magazine, Trump said five times that “it won’t happen.”
“It won’t happen. 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. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. It will not happen,” he said.
“Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened,” Trump went on.
However, a wide variety of experts and analysts — including the UN Human Rights Office — have said that Israel is already in the process of annexing the West Bank, both in policy and on the ground, with the full backing of the U.S.
Despite the practicalities of the U.S.’s support for Israel, Israeli lawmakers seemingly rebelled against the administration this week. Amid a visit to Israel by Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday, the Knesset advanced two bills related to the occupied West Bank, one calling for the annexation of the entire territory and another, more limited bill calling for the annexation of a large settlement in the region.
This was viewed as a snub to the Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and both governments criticized the vote — even though Netanyahu’s office acknowledged in a separate statement on Wednesday that it doesn’t oppose the practice of annexation, but merely the label of annexation.
Vance dismissed the vote as a “very stupid political stunt.” “I personally take some insult to it,” he said. “The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. That will continue to be our policy.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also criticized the vote — but left the door open to the possibility of annexation in the future, saying that it’s simply not the right thing “at this time.”
The vote could be “potentially even threatening to the peace deal,” Rubio told reporters, but continued: “They’re a democracy, they’re gonna have their votes, people are going to take these positions, but at this time it’s something that we think might be counterproductive.”
Commentators noted that the U.S.’s statements are merely for show if they aren’t backed up by an actual change in policy.
“This is welcomed news,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, commenting on Vance’s statements. “But it remains to be seen if this is a real rejection AND REVERSAL of annexation or if we’re just back to where things were under previous presidents in which annexation was taking place de facto, while the U.S. pretended to oppose it.”
“Appreciate this declaration of policy by VP @JDVance, but he has to know that while the Knesset vote may be symbolic, the ongoing de facto annexation of the West Bank is very real. If the U.S. is not going to allow it, as he says, they need to be ready to impose real consequences,” said Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy. “I’m extremely skeptical that they’ll be prepared to do so. But this administration has surprised me before.”
Some analysts have speculated that the entire incident is for show, for the sake of other leaders as the U.S. rabidly pursues normalization with Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman slated to visit the White House next month.
Indeed, despite their statements, the Trump administration has only helped Israel as it’s pursued its de facto annexation in the occupied West Bank.
Israel’s settlement expansion in the region has reached new heights in the past two years, with top ministers openly calling for annexation. Over the summer, the Israeli parliament overwhelmingly passed a motion calling for proclaiming “Israeli sovereignty” in the West Bank and declaring it “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel.” This motion was introduced and supported by members of Netanyahu’s political coalition, and was met with relative silence by the Trump administration.
The Trump administration has supported Israel at every step so far. One of the first moves of Trump’s second term, for instance, was lifting sanctions on dozens of Israeli settler groups and individuals involved in the settlement movement in the West Bank. Then, in April, the Trump administration advanced a shipment of over 20,000 assault rifles to Israel that had been withheld by the Biden administration over fears they would be used in the settler movement.
Trump also paved the way for annexation during his first term, with moves like recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and removing the Palestinian territories from the State Department’s list of recognized countries and areas.
Trump’s own ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has directly contradicted the Trump administration’s stated policies. Last month, Israeli media reported Huckabee saying that “the U.S. has never asked Israel to not apply sovereignty.”
“I have repeatedly stated that the US respects Israel as a sovereign nation and will not tell Israel what to do. This is also what Secretary Rubio has said as recently as this week,” he went on, potentially referring to Rubio warning that annexation is a “reciprocal” response to countries recognizing a Palestinian state.
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