US President Donald Trump said Israel would lose Washington's backing should the country go ahead with the annexation of the occupied West Bank. "It won't happen," Trump told US outlet Time Magazine, saying he had given his word to Arab leaders that the territory — which is considered illegally occupied under international law — will not be annexed. "Israel would lose all of its support from the US if that happened," Trump added. The US leader also described the conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that led to the latter agreeing to the ceasefire deal in Gaza. "I told (Netanyahu): You can't fight the world," Trump said. "I stopped him, because he would have just kept going," the US president stressed. Trump also said he plans to visit Gaza at some point.
00:00Donald Trump has said that Israel will lose all American support if it annexes the West Bank.
00:06In an interview with Time magazine, the US president said,
00:09it won't happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries.
00:13Hardline lawmakers in Israel's parliament, the Knesset,
00:16have backed a bill to apply Israeli law within the West Bank,
00:20effectively amounting to annexation.
00:23Israel already occupies the area in violation of international law.
00:27There will be three more rounds of voting before it can become law.
00:32US Vice President J.D. Vance said he took the vote as a personal insult.
00:36I mean, look, if it was a political stunt, it was a very stupid political stunt,
00:40and I personally take some insult to it, the West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel.
00:45The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.
00:50That will continue to be our policy, and if people want to take symbolic votes,
00:53they can do that, but we certainly weren't happy about it.
00:58So do these rebukes from the Trump administration indicate the beginnings of a rift
01:02between the White House and the Israeli government?
01:05I asked our correspondent in Jerusalem, Emily Gordine.
01:10Well, look, Phil, the Israelis know that they cannot afford any rift with the Americans at this point.
01:16The Americans are their strongest, most powerful, most important ally at this point.
01:20But let me just recap what exactly happened today.
01:23So the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, passed two bills to annex the Israeli settlements,
01:30the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and to annex one specific, one city settlement,
01:35Ma'ale Ad-Ammim, which is one of the biggest settlements in the occupied West Bank,
01:39that is sort of east of East Jerusalem.
01:41All of that amounts to effectively annexation of the entire West Bank because they occupy so much territory.
01:47And now these bills will now go to committees, and they will still have to pass three votes in the Knesset.
01:53And political pundits in Israel certainly believe that they will not pass those votes,
01:57they will not get the majority in the Knesset because of that opposition from the U.S.
02:02And Netanyahu himself has called this a, quote, deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during Vance's visit to Israel.
02:13So he's tried to distance himself from this move.
02:17That being said, it is all too well known in Israel that Netanyahu himself is not opposed to annexation.
02:23He has been in favor of annexation.
02:27He is so ideologically, politically, and he's also said on various occasions that there will not be a Palestinian country, a Palestinian nation.
02:37This territory, quote, belongs to us.
02:40So he's made it very clear where he sees the territory of the West Bank.
02:44And the thing is, though, now is that the Israelis really cannot afford to lose support.
02:49And that is why there is no, you know, official, you know, that's why they've put a stop to the, this, putting this into official policy, essentially,
03:00even though the facts on the ground speak for themselves.
03:02We've seen over the years, over the decades, really an increase of Israeli, illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank,
03:08outposts, illegal outposts to flourish, flourished settler violence runs rampant,
03:13effectively displacing hundreds of Palestinians, thousands of Palestinians from their land.
03:17So the actions on the ground speak for themselves.
03:20But the Israelis at this point cannot make this official policy simply because of the U.S. opposition.
03:26Well, let's explore what's going on with Shalom Lipner,
03:29who served in the Israeli prime minister's office from 1990 to 2016 under seven consecutive Israeli governments.
03:36He's currently with the Atlantic Council in Jerusalem.
03:39Welcome to DW.
03:40This action has been attributed to a few hardliners in the Knesset trying to make trouble for the government.
03:48Is that your reading of what's happening in the parliament?
03:53Good to be with you tonight, Bill.
03:55I think that's a fairly accurate reading.
03:57As the president and other principals, American principals said, as you indicated now, there was a lot of symbolism to this.
04:06It's very much a preliminary vote.
04:08It doesn't have much effect in law.
04:11It's more an outgrowth of the problems that Netanyahu is having in his coalition right now, which is very unruly.
04:19I think, if anything, it definitely and certainly embarrassed the president, the vice president, who else was in town.
04:25But the president, the prime minister, I'm sorry, was very much embarrassed by it as well.
04:29And it's part of a tug of war that's going on over here.
04:32I think that, you know, notwithstanding what we've seen in the response of Vice President Vance and others,
04:37is I think that, you know, there's diminished, shall we say, American patience for Israeli political theater at this time.
04:43So even if it's just the symbolic move right now, you know, there's a concern in the United States.
04:48I think that it also speaks to maybe a growing leadership vacuum in Israel,
04:52which will make it hard for them to achieve their goals here if there's not a strong partner around the table.
04:57OK, so to embarrass the prime minister with no expectation of this measure actually being passed.
05:07Well, I mean, again, look, obviously the people that voted for it would like to see it happen.
05:11And I think that, you know, realistically, they don't see it coming to pass.
05:14The prime minister, it has been reported extensively, reached out to all the people involved in this action in advance,
05:20asking them not to do that and not to pursue it.
05:24We've had sort of rising temperature out of Washington in terms of warnings in response to this, right?
05:31I mean, as you indicated at the start of our talk as well, the, you know, the most prominent of that being the president's words to time magazine right now,
05:40you know, his own voice saying that the United States will withdraw all support of this when the annexation went through,
05:44because it would complicate his agenda on the region.
05:47So I think that very much the right act has been read.
05:50And I don't think the prime minister can afford to allow for this to advance in any substantive way.
05:54But that will not stop his partners, who right now are feeling hungry and adventurous and confrontational and, you know,
06:01wanting to put this up there and, you know, indicate to him that just as, you know,
06:05the president has red lines and the prime minister has red lines while his coalition partners may have red lines also.
06:11I mean, that could, that could come to a head in the coming weeks.
06:13So is Benjamin Netanyahu then therefore leaving, losing control of his government?
06:22There's reason to assume so.
06:24I mean, again, it, it, part of what's happening here is that, is, is that his opposition is very much divided.
06:30Were it not for that, we might be in a stronger situation that there'd be an electoral threat.
06:34Like, all of these are not supposed to be held statutorily for another year yet.
06:40There's much discussion and you had expectation that will be, that they could be moved forward if circumstances.
06:44And that's a whole complicated conversation unto itself.
06:47We're to allow for that right now.
06:49But, you know, right now, again, you know, he's very much beholden to the shrinking coalition that he has.
06:54And these people are flexing muscles.
06:56They have demands.
06:57They'd like to see promises made to them kept as well and are very much feeling, you know,
07:02we're in the mood for brinkmanship right now.
07:04Suggesting to him that if he doesn't meet them somewhere in the middle on things that they want,
07:07that they could threaten the continuation of his rule.
07:11But, again, like, I mean, I think that, you know, the prime minister will only allow that,
07:14could only afford to allow that to go to a point because the bigger elephant in the room is the White House right now.
07:20And, you know, the president willing to follow through on his threats to withdraw American support.
07:24I don't think the prime minister will be able to accede to the wishes of his partners.
07:27And it would move us closer to that election, you know, even closer than we might be under other circumstances.
07:32Yeah, let's talk about that American elephant in the room.
07:35We have U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arriving in Israel just as Vice President J.D. Vance left.
07:42Israeli media now joking about senior White House officials babysitting Israel's government.
07:49How much of a bind is Mr. Netanyahu in over the Palestinians given this increased presence in Israel
07:58and his reliance on these coalition partners who want annexation?
08:02There is this rock and a hard place situation.
08:07In terms of the Americans, I think you're right, they've very much been noticed.
08:11And then, as you say, all those reports of them babysitting the Israeli government right now, call it what you will.
08:16I think the question there will be how that, you know, continues moving forward.
08:22I think, you know, obviously right now we're seeing this.
08:24We saw the president and Rubio himself and the Secretary of the War, Hegseth, come out with him.
08:30And then the Vice President came back and now Rubio was the Prime Minister tonight.
08:33That meeting has already happened.
08:35So, you know, there's very much hands-on right now to be able to see this thing through.
08:39And the United States indicates how important it is for them to make sure that this effort succeeds.
08:45But, again, as I've emphasized many times in recent months, there are many spoilers here as well.
08:49And there are realities on the ground as well that complicate matters.
08:53And if the president or the United States will become distracted into other areas or other people came into the mix,
08:58then that effort could maybe not disintegrate, but it would be harder to get over the finish line.
09:04So I think that, you know, what we see now is, you know, valid for this particular situation.
09:09I don't know where we're going to be a few weeks from right now.
09:11Where we sit right now, the Americans are very much on top of this, sitting on top of the Prime Minister.
09:15I think it was interesting tonight in the brief comments they made before the press when the Secretary left tonight,
09:22that the Prime Minister was emphasizing, he called it, I believe, a circle of trust and partnership with the United States
09:27and talked about Rubio's extraordinary friendship for Israel.
09:30But the Secretary was all business, you know, talking about working with all the partners
09:33and the obstacles and the path and, you know, there was so much work left to do.
09:37So, I mean, you know, he was sort of pushing away that bear hug to the extent that, you know,
09:41he wanted to indicate that he meant business.
09:43OK, good talking to you. Thanks for talking to us through that.
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