US Officials: Israeli Annexations Are Fine With Or Without a Palestinian State

Embassy says US is prepared to recognize annexation

US officials from the Jerusalem Embassy issued a statement on Friday reiterating that they are wholly comfortable with Israel’s planned annexation of the occupied West Bank as part of the Trump Administration’s “peace plan” unveiled earlier this year.

Trump’s plan was meant to stake out a nominal Palestinian state as part of this plan, even though it clearly isn’t heading that direction. US officials want to clarify that they don’t mind if Israel’s annexation comes without a Palestinian state.

This almost goes without saying, as officials were very clear at the time that the Trump plan favored Israel over the Palestinians as a matter of policy. In great measure the plan was meant to further normalize the occupation as part of US policy, and that means annexation.

Annexation of much of the West Bank, absent a Palestinian state, essentially ends the track to statehood. Israel’s far-right is fine with that, since they never intended to let them have a state to begin with, while the Trump Administration is fine with it too as a way to punish the Palestinians for not endorsing the Trump Plan, which was deliberately not in their favor.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.