Trump told Muslim leaders he won't let Israel annex West Bank: Report

US President Donald Trump pledged to Muslim leaders that he wouldn't allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the occupied West Bank, according to news outlet Politico.

The report cited six sources familiar with the discussion while "two of those people said Trump was firm on the topic and that the president promised that Israel would not be allowed to absorb the West Bank".

According to Politico, Trump presented a white paper on ending Israel's war on Gaza, which included the annexation pledge alongside a plan for postwar governance and security.

The pledge from Trump may come as a surprise given that much of the occupied West Bank is already de facto annexed and US officials have either condoned it or turned the other cheek when discussing it. 

One US and one western official briefed on recent discussions, who spoke with Middle East Eye for an earlier article, said that Israel could officially annex the Jordan Valley, a wide swathe of territory bordering Jordan, in response to the moves by states at the UN to recognise a state of Palestine.

The US official told MEE that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed with Netanyahu specific areas in the occupied West Bank that Israel might officially annex this week, but didn't say what the US attitude was.

"I'd say, anything that was on the table in the 'Deal of the Century' for annexation by Israel is fair game," the western official told MEE. "Whether the US shrugs at that or recognises [Israeli] sovereignty is another matter."

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has also been a passionate advocate for Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank since before he took office in this administration. "I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria," he told Politico in 2017.

"There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement. They're communities, they're neighbourhoods, they're cities. There's no such thing as an occupation," he said at the time.

Turkey's President Erdogan was the only leader to publicly comment on the meeting at the UN General Assembly yesterday, saying the discussion had been "fruitful", but no official account has been released of what was discussed in the meeting. 

The closed-door meeting on the sidelines of the UN meeting on Tuesday was attended by Trump and leaders from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates.

Middle East Eye reached out to the US State Department for comment on the meeting but did not receive a response by time of publication.

Red Line

Israel has repeatedly threatened to annex the occupied West Bank since its war on Gaza began, but those proclamations have been getting louder and more threatening as an increasing number of countries officially recognise the State of Palestine in the days leading up to the UN summit.

After the United Kingdom recognised Palestine, Israel's Finance Minister Belazel Smotrich said on 21 September that "the only response to the anti-Israeli move is sovereignty over the homeland of the Jewish people in Judea and Samaria, and the removal of the foolish idea of a Palestinian state from the agenda forever", using the Hebrew language terms for the occupied West Bank. 

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France, Luxembourg, Malta and Monaco all recognised a Palestinian state at the UN meeting, with Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium hinging recognition on certain preconditions.

Israeli threats to annex the occupied West Bank have raised a sense of urgency in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The UAE said in early Septmeber that any move by Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank would be a "red line" for the Gulf state.

The warning is notable because the UAE has emerged as one of the few Arab states to position itself alongside Israel despite its genocide in Gaza.

"Annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE," said Lana Nusseibeh, the foreign ministry's assistant minister for political affairs, in a statement. "It would severely undermine the vision and spirit of the [Abraham] Accords."

The UAE is a signatory to the 2020 Abraham Accords, along with Morocco and Bahrain, which saw the Arab countries establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. The move was condemned by Palestinians and their supporters.

Israel's genocide in Gaza has created tensions between it and other Arab states, but the UAE has preserved ties with Israel. For example, earlier this year, Israel's foreign minister visited the UAE - one of his only public visits to an Arab state in the last 22 months.

Israeli media outlet Channel 12 also reported on 22 September that Saudi Arabia had sent a message to Israel that any annexation would have "major implications in all fields" without specifying what exactly that means.

One of the Trump administration's primary foreign policy goals in the Middle East has been to bring Saudi Arabia into the so-called Abraham Accords, but the kingdom has rebuffed those efforts saying that a Palestinian state would be a prerequisite for any such normalisation.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also gone on record to say Israel's war on Gaza was a genocide.