The Israeli Knesset on Wednesday advanced a bill to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank as Vice President JD Vance is visiting Israel.
According to Haaretz, the bill to annex the Palestinian territory passed a preliminary vote in a vote of 25-24 and still needs to go through three more votes to become law. The effort was opposed by most members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, which condemned the vote as a “stunt by the opposition aimed at harming our relations with the United States.”
The bill was introduced and supported by far-right parties, including Jewish Power and Religious Zionism, which are both in Netanyahu’s coalition government. Just one Likud MK, Yuli Edelstein, broke with his party to support the bill, and he has reportedly been removed from the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for the vote.
While Netanyahu and his Likud party are staunch supporters of expanding illegal Jewish settlements and hope to eventually annex the West Bank, they’re also working to maintain good relations with the Trump administration. President Trump recently said he would “not allow” Israel to annex the West Bank.
The sponsor of the bill, Israeli MK Avi Maoz of the Noam party, which holds just one seat in the Knesset, was part of Netanyahu’s government before he left earlier this year.
“The Holy One, blessed be He, gave the people of Israel the Land of Israel. Settlement in the Land of Israel is the redemption and national revival, settlement is what makes the Land of Israel flourish after two thousand years of exile,” he told other MKs before the vote, according to The Times of Israel.
“In applying sovereignty to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), we are making a correction that is long overdue. Since the government has been procrastinating, our job as members of Knesset is to do this,” Maoz added.
The Knesset advanced a second bill on Wednesday that would formally annex Ma’ale Adumim, a large West Bank settlement that has a population of about 40,000. That bill received support from centrist opposition parties and passed in a vote of 32-9.
The Israeli government has a history of announcing new plans for Israeli settlements and land grabs in the West Bank when US officials visit the country. While President Trump has said he opposes annexation, his administration has been very supportive of the government’s plans for the major expansion of settlements.
