- Annexation would be a red line for my government, it means that no lasting peace will be possible, says the Emirati envoy Lana Nussaibah to The Times of Israel in Abu Dhabi.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to hold consultations this week on the West Bank. The far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is putting forward a plan ahead of it that would mean that over 80 percent of the Palestinian West Bank would be annexed by Israel.
Make a historic decision to impose Israeli sovereignty in all open areas of Judea and Samaria, Smotrich urges according to The Times of Israel.
Judea and Samaria are the biblical terms Israel often uses for the West Bank.
The United Arab Emirates was one of the countries that five years ago entered into the Abraham Accords, peace agreements with Israel that US President Donald Trump has highlighted as one of the major successes of his first term. Lana Nussaibah signals that the US may need to intervene now.
- We do not believe that President Trump will allow the significance of the Abraham Accords in his legacy to be tarnished, threatened or overturned by extremists and radicals.
Annexation means to completely take over a land area with violence or with other means of power and claim that it is part of one's own country. Israel has previously annexed the eastern parts of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in southwestern Syria.
