President Trump’s administration won’t “prejudge” an Israeli effort to annex settlements in the West Bank, according to the top U.S. envoy to Israel.
“I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank,” Ambassador David Friedman told the New York Times.
Friedman’s comments could give momentum to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign season pledge to “extend sovereignty” over land that the United Nations has designated “occupied Palestinian territory.” He is a key member of a team led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner that has been crafting a closely held proposal to broker a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
“We really don’t have a view until we understand how much, on what terms, why does it make sense, why is it good for Israel, why is it good for the region, why does it not create more problems than it solves,” Friedman said. “These are all things that we’d want to understand, and I don’t want to prejudge.”
Israeli incursions into the West Bank culminated in outgoing President Barack Obama’s decision to allow the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the expansion of the settlements in December of 2016. Trump’s team denounced Obama’s refusal to veto the resolution, but Kushner tapped the brakes on Netanyahu’s annexation proposal during a recent discussion of his peace plan.
“I hope both sides will take a real look at it, the Israeli and the Palestinian side, before any unilateral steps are made,” Kushner said last month.
Those comments, however, came before Netanyahu failed to strike an agreement with rival political parties to form a governing majority of the Israeli legislature. Netanyahu’s allies promptly moved to schedule new elections, which could put Kushner under pressure to postpone unveiling his plan until November.
“Certainly Israel’s entitled to retain some portion of it,” Friedman said in the newly published interview.
