In the West Bank, Israel is brazenly defying Trump |
In the West Bank, Israel is brazenly defying Trump
When it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, President Trump has focused his diplomatic efforts on Gaza — understandably so. More than 60 percent of Gaza’s housing stock has been destroyed after three and a half years of conflict there. The latest reporting indicates that 1.6 million people are facing acute food insecurity there.
But no Gaza strategy can succeed while ignoring the West Bank, where the Israeli government, in a rush to annex the territory, is brazenly defying Trump. In fact, if the Trump administration doesn’t act soon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have outmaneuvered Trump and derailed America’s efforts in Gaza.
The link between Gaza progress and halting West Bank annexation is not new. America’s regional allies raised it during ceasefire talks, prompting Trump to tell Netanyahu privately (and later to reporters) that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Yet on the ground, annexation has sped up to a shocking degree.
For decades, the U.S. has tolerated some level of settlement expansion, knowing that it carries with it the gradual loss of Palestinians’ access to territory and a political calculus for Israeli leaders that becomes increasingly stacked against any Israeli withdrawal. It has sometimes been called “creeping annexation.” But what’s happening now is no longer “creeping.” It is annexation, plain and simple.
The clearest example is the E1 corridor east of Jerusalem. Building there would effectively sever the northern and southern West Bank and foreclose a viable Palestinian state. For decades, Israeli settlers have pushed for it to be built, developing plans for housing and massive highways. But successive Israeli governments have also heard from Israel’s European allies and from U.S. administrations of both parties that it must not happen.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides recounted that when he had to pick his battles and not oppose every Israeli settlement move, he decided to go “full bore on E1” because allowing the Israeli government to build it would be a “disaster.”
But Mike Huckabee is now ensconced in Nides’s old job — and Trump’s admonition apparently carries little weight, because Israel is now moving forward on this very plan. In January, Israel started accepting bids for the construction of 3,401 housing units, notifying landowners that their land was being seized and that work on the new highways would begin within 45 days.
Other major projects are also moving fast: The settlement of Adam is set for 6,000 units, with $39 million in new infrastructure funding, and 9,000 apartments intended for Orthodox Jews. These are moving forward smack in the middle of a densely populated Palestinian area between central Jerusalem and Ramallah. This list could easily go on and on.
American foreign policy-makers have never witnessed anything like the fundamental legal changes that Netanyahu is now making to the West Bank. When Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967, international law mandated that it be ruled as an occupation, in which the military is in charge — not Israeli civilian authorities. When the Palestinian Authority started ruling parts of the West Bank in the 1990s, Israel ceded control in those areas. This legal framework recognized that Israeli rule was not a fait accompli but rather a temporary arrangement that would last until a diplomatic solution could be agreed upon.
Now, in a series of audacious executive actions, Netanyahu’s government is flipping this legal framework on its head. In new cabinet decisions, Israel is no longer treated as an occupying power. The Israeli military is stripped of responsibilities related to its role as a military government, and powers provided to the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accords are dismantled.
Taken together, the rapid integration of the West Bank into Israel’s legal regime and the historic pace of settlement construction is annexation. It is Netanyahu ignoring Trump’s admonition.
Some will argue that Trump is instinctually more sympathetic to Israeli sovereignty claims than his predecessors, and that he may ultimately bless Netanyahu’s moves. But that carries a cost. Consider the prospect of Israel normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia — one of Trump’s signature foreign policy goals. It is explicitly contingent on a credible pathway to Palestinian statehood. Annexation kills that prospect. If Netanyahu succeeds, Trump doesn’t win. Rather, he loses one of the most consequential diplomatic opportunities of his presidency.
The downsides go beyond a missed peace deal. By accelerating annexation, Netanyahu is returning to the same political playbook that he has relied on for his entire career. He creates facts on the ground, avoids meaningful negotiations, and enables extremists like Hamas to rise. This is how he helped tie the Oslo Peace Process up in knots until it collapsed under its own weight. And this is how he created an illusion of stability vis-a-vis Gaza, until that collapsed in the horrors of October 7, 2023.
We don’t have to let this history repeat. President Trump knows how to put pressure on Netanyahu. The question is whether Trump will recognize that the West Bank is where his Gaza strategy will be won or lost — before Netanyahu makes that choice for him. A ceasefire built atop annexation will not hold. When it collapses, the cost will once again be counted in lives. And when that happens, the responsibility will fall squarely on Trump for letting Netanyahu outfox him.
Lior Amihai is executive director of the Israeli Peace Now movement. Hadar Susskind is the president and CEO of New Jewish Narrative.
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