Israeli Reports: US Will Not Allow Annexation in West Bank

Arab World

April 26th, 10:48am

Ramallah- Kifah Zboun

A Palestinian worker gets his temperature checked as he returns to the West Bank (File photo: AFP)

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) accused the US administration of giving Israel the green light to annex parts of the West Bank. However, political analyst, Raviv Drucker, told Israeli Channel 13 that Blue and White alliance held secret discussions with the White House and reached a conclusion to prevent the annexation of the West Bank. Sources close to the alliance said that US President Donald Trump will not allow annexation. This matter was a point of contention between Likud and Blue and White, at the beginning of their negotiations to form a unified government between Benjamin Netanyahu and his centrist rival Benny Gantz. Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it was an Israeli decision whether to annex parts of the West Bank and the United States will offer its views on this to the new Israeli government in private. “As for the annexation of the West Bank, the Israelis will ultimately make those decisions,” Pompeo told reporters. “That’s an Israeli decision. And we will work closely with them to share with them our views of this in a private setting.” Pompeo expressed his happiness with the deal signed between Netanyahu and Gantz to form a national emergency government, saying he did not think a fourth Israeli election was in Israel’s interest. Palestine accuses the US of granting Israel the green light to annex parts of the West Bank, especially after Netanyahu pledged to establish Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea within the next few months. Meanwhile, PLO’s National Bureau for Defending Land said that Pompeo’s speech was not improvised as much as it was agreed between the US-Israel task force tasked with drawing up the annexation maps. The report added that Pompeo's announcement is a green light for the Netanyahu-Gantz government to move forward with the arrangements to impose Israeli sovereignty over lands in the West Bank as soon as the US-Israeli task force is done with the map. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that all agreements with Israel and the US would be considered null and void if Tel Aviv annexed any parts of the West Bank, which means the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority (PA). On Thursday, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, warned against unilateral moves that will only deepen between the two peoples and undermine the chances for peace. Mladenov said in a briefing to the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East that the dangerous prospect of the annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank is a growing threat. “If such a move were implemented, it would constitute a serious violation of international law, deal a devastating blow to the two-state solution, close the door to a renewal of negotiations, and threaten efforts to advance regional peace.” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qasim said that the US insistence on its positions in support of the Zionist colonial policy is an active participation in the aggression against the rights of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people will expel the occupier and its settlers from all the West Bank land, he vowed.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2253616/israeli-reports-us-will-not-allow-annexation-west-bank