Image by U.S. Embassy Jerusalem
White House Special Advisor to the President Jared Kushner said today the Trump administration is in no hurry to allow Israel to annex the West Bank, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave assurances he would seek American approval before moving forward with that process.
“That land is land that right now Israel quite frankly controls. Israelis that live there aren’t going anywhere. There shouldn’t be any urgency to applying Israeli law. We believe they will respect their agreement,” Kushner said.
“President Trump is committed to holding them accountable to it, and Israel has agreed with us that they will not move forward without our consent,” Kushner told reporters during a briefing. “We do not plan to give our consent for some time, as right now the focus has to be on getting this new peace agreement implemented.”
“There is no change to our plans to apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, in coordination with the US,” Netanyahu said late Thursday. “I remain committed to that.”
“He has given us assurances that he won’t do it without our consent, and that’s good enough for us,” Kushner said. “We believe that agreement will hold.”
The special adviser recounted that as Israel came close to making moves toward sovereignty, “a lot of people were objecting to it,” and “the UAE thought perhaps by normalizing with Israel they can stop that, stave off the possibility of having Israel be condemned for it and give the Palestinian people hope and an opportunity for a negotiated settlement.“The ball is really in the court of the Palestinians now,” he added, reported The Jerusalem Post.
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