Asked about Israel officials suggesting in recent weeks that their government could move to seize control of at least some parts of the West Bank, Trump was blunt.
“I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank,” he told reporters in the Oval Office while signing executive orders unrelated to foreign policy. “I will not allow it. It’s not going to happen.”
Possible annexation has been floated in Israel in response to a string of countries — including key U.S. allies like the United Kingdom and Canada — moving to recognize a Palestinian state. Trump said he'd spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but that he'd be firm in not allowing annexation, adding, “It's been enough. It's time to stop now.”
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war.
More than half a million Jewish settlers now live in the West Bank in some 130 settlements.
Just as Israel has been forced to deal with Hamas terrorists in Gaza, for years Palestinian terrorists from the West Bank have raken the lives of many Israeli Jews, And those terrorists have been rewarded by the Palestinian leadership which has named streets after them and given the families of the terrorists large amounts of money.
