Soldiers at the entrance to the Jewish settlement of Har Gilo, Feb. 23, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a conference call with Jared Kushner and other top White House officials to discuss slowing down West Bank annexation plans, an Israeli TV station reported.
Channel 13 in its report Monday, June 1, cited an unnamed senior Israeli source that the Trump administration wants to “downplay the enthusiasm” for immediate annexation and to “greatly slow the process” since the attention of the White House is taken up by the current national protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody and the coronavirus crisis.
Netanyahu was on the call with White House adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law; Avi Berkowitz, White House Middle East peace negotiator; David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel; and Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the US.
Unnamed US sources told Channel 13 that the officials asked Netanyahu if and how Israel would move forward with unilateral annexation, but did not receive an answer.
The call followed a meeting between Friedman and Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, who also holds the title of deputy prime minister, Channel 13 reported.
Gantz on Monday ordered the Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff, Aviv Kohavi, to “step up preparations for the IDF ahead of diplomatic efforts on the agenda in the Palestinian arena,” the Times of Israel reported, citing Gantz’s office. The statement did not specifically refer to annexation.
Netanyahu said last week in a meeting with government ministers that he has a target date in July to extend Israeli sovereignty over about 30% of the West Bank, which is provided for in the Trump Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
The coalition deal between Netanyahu and Gantz permits annexation from July 1.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu urged settler leaders to get behind his push to annex parts of the West Bank on Tuesday, June 2, in the wake of their public arguments that the plan would effectively halt settlement expansion.
Netanyahu is trying to take advantage of the time he has before a possible change in the US administration to follow through on a pledge he promised for over a year of political campaigning: applying Israeli sovereignty over large swaths of West Bank that most of the international community sees as illegally occupied.
Now some Israeli settler leaders, whom Netanyahu has courted and counted on for support for years, have joined in the argument against immediate annexation, as detailed in reports in The New York Times and the Times of Israel.
They say that annexing the territory now would turn the settlements into “disconnected enclaves that would be barred from expanding” and further isolate them from the rest of the Israeli state.
“Either the settlements have a future or the Palestinian state does — but not both,” right-wing lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich told The New York Times.
Netanyahu told settler leaders in a meeting on Tuesday that they have a “historic opportunity” when it comes to annexation.
