At least two officials associated with the US President-elect Donald Trump’s previous administration told senior Israeli ministers not to assume that Trump would support annexing the West Bank in his second term, sources told Times for Israel.
The message was delivered in separate meetings and conversations during the presidential campaign, but Israel did not seem much affected by it.
On Monday (Nov 11), Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) thanks to Trump’s return to office.”
“I intend, with God’s help, to lead a government decision that says that the government of Israel will work with the new administration of President Trump and the international community to apply the Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and for American and international recognition and to the end of the Israeli-Arab conflict in the Middle East,” Reuters reported him saying.
On November 8, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Yechiel Leiter as Israel’s next ambassador to the US.
Leiter is a former settler leader who has advocated for annexing large parts of the West Bank and against the establishment of a Palestinian state.
An Israeli official told the Times of Israel that Trump’s former advisers, in recent meetings with senior Israeli ministers, did not rule out the move but said not to assume it as a “foregone conclusion.”
Trump’s ‘America First’ Approach
Trump’s 2017-2021 presidency was often defined on the world stage by his “America First” protectionist trade policy and isolationist rhetoric, including threats to withdraw from NATO.
When Trump was last in the White House, he presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. But those diplomatic deals did nothing to advance Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza.
Still, Trump is likely to push for the historic normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, an effort initiated during his first term and which Biden has also pursued.
(With inputs from agencies)