Trump vows to block Israel’s West Bank annexation, but expert urges caution
US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will not allow Israel to annex the occupied West Bank has to be welcomed with some caution, says Mohamad Elmasry, professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
“The US administration sometimes does seemingly rebuke Israel or indicate their opposition to something Israel is doing, but then they end up allowing Israel to do whatever it wants,” Elmasry said, noting how former President Joe Biden had said that the US would not have allowed Israel to attack Gaza’s southern city of Rafah and then stood back when that happened.
But regardless of the US’s rhetoric, Elmasry said, “the reality is that Israel already exerts de facto control over the West Bank … In some ways, the whole annexation question is a bit academic.”
Since the war in 1967, Israel has set up hundreds of settlements and outposts across the West Bank, resulting in more than half a million Jewish Israelis living there and fragmenting the contiguity of the Palestinian territory.
“The two-state solution has been rendered effectively impossible already … I don’t see any viable path towards a Palestinian state there. You would have to dismantle hundreds of settlements and outposts, and Israel has indicated that it is not prepared to do that because it believes that this is their land that was promised to them by God, by biblical mandate.”
Germany backs Trump not allowing Israeli annexation of West Bank
Germany welcomes remarks by US President Donald Trump saying he will not allow Israel to annex the occupied West Bank, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson says.
“An annexation of the West Bank, but also the construction of settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, remains a major obstacle on the way to a two-state solution,” the spokesperson said.
Western countries have repeatedly voiced their opposition to the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements across the Palestinian territory, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, but have rarely taken concrete measures to pressure Israel to comply with international law.
Crucial West Bank-Jordan crossing briefly opens – then closes
We reported earlier the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge connecting the occupied West Bank and Israel remains closed despite Israeli authorities saying on Thursday it would reopen.
Now the Palestinian General Authority for Borders and Crossings said the passage was opened for two and a half hours before being closed again until next Sunday. More than 2,035 travellers departed from the Palestinian side and 850 arrived from the Jordanian side.
Israel ordered the indefinite closure of the King Hussein Bridge, also known as the Allenby Bridge, stopping the passage of goods and people through the only gateway between the occupied West Bank and Jordan last week.
The move came after a Jordanian national travelling in a humanitarian aid truck killed two Israeli soldiers.
