Kushner: U.S. Will Not Agree to Israeli Annexation ‘For Some Time’
Senior advisor to President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, said Monday that Israel would not go ahead with its decision to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank without the U.S.’ approval, which would not be or “some time.”
“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.
“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,” he added, referring to the recently signed deal to establish formal relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel.Both the UAE and the U.S. said the issue of annexation had been suspended in light of the deal.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, stressed there were “no changes” to his commitment to applying sovereignty and Trump had only requested to pause the plans for now.Hailing the “very trusting relationship” between Trump and Netanyahu, Kushner said the Israeli leader had assured Washington he would not go through with the plans without its backing.“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.”Referring to the West Bank, Kushner went on: “That is land that right now Israel, quite frankly, controls. It’s Israelis who are living there. It’s not going anywhere. There shouldn’t be any urgency to apply Israeli law. So we believe that they will stick to their agreement.”“We really want to get as much interchange between Israel and the United Arab Emirates as possible, and we really want Israel to focus on creating new relationships and new alliances,” he added.Trump’s peace plan sees Israel annexing 30 percent of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. It also delineates a demilitarized Palestinian state established on most of the West Bank with parts of eastern Jerusalem that are outside the Israeli security fence as its capital.In the briefing, Kushner expressed his belief that Trump’s plan could solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but added the caveat: “we’re not going to chase the Palestinian leadership.”“We reached out to them and said the application of Israeli sovereignty is on hold,” he said.
“Their credibility is just really falling to an all time low and even people who want to help the Palestinians, those people are just saying that you can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves.”
PA President Mahmoud Abbas called an emergency meeting in response to the “despicable decision” to establish diplomatic ties. The PA also recalled its ambassador to Abu Dhabi.
Kushner responded by saying the world was “starting to block out the noise” coming from Palestinian officials, calling their response to the announcement “just so predictable and illogical.”Hours after the deal was announced, Kushner said there was a “very good chance” that more deals were in the offing within the next three months.In his first interview with an Emirati network, Netanyahu told the Abu Dhabi-based Sky News Arabia that Israel favors peace with Arab countries over annexation of the West Bank.
Photo: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images
