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U.S. President Donald Trump warned that Israel would "lose all U.S. support" if it annexes the occupied West Bank, responding to a preliminary vote in Israel's parliament while Vice President JD Vance was visiting the country.
"It won't happen. It won't happen. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. And you can't do that now. We've had great Arab support. It won't happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. It will not happen. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened," Trump told Time magazine in an interview published Thursday.
The Israeli Knesset passed a preliminary vote on late Wednesday on a bill to annex illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank by 25-24, requiring three more votes to become law.
The timing during Vance's visit prompted sharp U.S. criticism.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed his coalition government Thursday to halt any progress on the West Bank annexation bill "until further notice" following the U.S. administration's criticism, according to Israeli media reports.
Netanyahu's office called Wednesday's vote "a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during U.S. Vice President JD Vance's visit to Israel." The statement claimed Likud party members and coalition government parties did not support the vote.
Coalition chairman Ofir Katz was instructed not to advance any new steps on the annexation legislation in the Knesset, Israeli media reported.
Vice President Vance, speaking at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport as he departed Israel, called the timing of the vote a "personal insult" and described it as "stupid."
"If it's a political show, it was a very stupid move. I take this as a personal insult. The West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. The Trump administration's policy is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. Our policy will continue in this direction," Vance said on Thursday.
He characterized the parliamentary move as "strange" and "symbolic" with no practical implications, saying he was told it was "a political show."
"If some people want to hold symbolic votes, they can, but we are not happy with this situation," Vance added.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar assured on Thursday that Netanyahu's government would not support the annexation bill, calling Wednesday's vote an opposition attempt to embarrass the government during Vance's visit.
"I assure you this is only a preliminary discussion and cannot proceed without the Israeli government's support. We will not move forward on this issue," Saar said during a joint press conference with Albanian Foreign Minister Elisa Spiropali.
Saar insisted the government did not participate in Wednesday's vote and emphasized Israel's commitment to working for the success of Trump's Gaza plan, which requires Palestinian groups to disarm.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, where more than 4 million Palestinians live under Israeli military administration. The territory contains over 250 illegal Jewish settlements housing approximately 600,000 Israelis living under Israeli civil law, in violation of international law.
Palestinians face increasing attacks from extremist groups protected by Israeli military forces, with their lands and agricultural areas being confiscated by radical Jewish settlers operating under harsh conditions.
Right-wing and far-right parties in Israel, particularly those supported by extremist groups, have long advocated for annexing the occupied West Bank despite international law prohibitions.
The bill requiring three additional Knesset votes would formalize Israel's sovereignty over settlements considered illegal under international law and by most of the international community.
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When asked by the Times magazine to U.S. President Trump about whether he has any plans to visit Gaza and under what conditions, he responded by saying, "I will. Yeah, I will. You know, we have the Board of Peace, and it's set up. They asked me to be the chairman. It was not something I wanted to do, believe me, but the Board of Peace is going to be a very powerful group of people, and it's going to have a lot of power in terms of the Middle East."
"The Middle East has never been brought together. It's really been brought together now, other than Hamas, which is a fringe group, and Hamas has, in theory, been brought together too, they signed the document. You know, they agreed to all this stuff. Now they can go against it. That's fine, and then nobody would mind if we went in and took them to task," he noted.
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