Rubio is curbing Israel's moves towards the West Bank. “It's a threat”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Israeli parliament's attempt to recognize the annexation of the West Bank is detrimental to the peace plan for the Gaza Strip. Rubio said this Wednesday evening before flying to Israel. On that day, the Parliament in Jerusalem adopted a preliminary version of the annexation law.

“They passed it by vote in the Knesset, but the president (US Donald Trump) has made it clear that it is not something we would support at this time and it potentially jeopardizes the peace agreement,” Rubio said.

The head of US diplomacy is scheduled to fly to Israel on Thursday. His visit is the latest in a series of trips by senior US officials to the country to maintain the fragile truce reached two weeks ago between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Thursday is the last day of US Vice President JD Vance's visit to Israel.

The Knesset on Wednesday voted to proceed with a draft law that would include Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank under Israeli law and establish them as “sovereign and inseparable” parts of the Israeli state.

To become law, the bill would have to be passed in three more votes. The chances of this happening are very small because the bill is not supported by the majority of the opposition and the Likud party, which is the core of the coalition, and is led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Wednesday's vote was won by 25 to 24 votes in the 120-seat parliament thanks to the votes of extreme nationalist and religious groups, some of which are Netanyahu's coalition partners. Likud boycotted the vote and described it as a provocation intended to harm Israel's relations with the US.

In the 1967 war, the West Bank, then belonging to Jordan, was captured by Israel. Since the 1990s, part of this territory has been co-administered by the Palestinian Authority. Jewish settlements are rapidly developing in the West Bank, supported by the current government. Currently, approximately 3 million Palestinians and half a million Jews live in this area.

The settlements, together with the surrounding roads, infrastructure and Israeli army posts, occupy about half of the entire territory. The Palestinians consider the development of settlements to be an attempt at actual annexation and an obstacle to the construction of a future independent state, which they would like to create in this area. The UN and most countries in the world consider Jewish settlement in this area illegal.

In Wednesday's statement, Likud stressed that the government is strengthening the settlements every day with concrete actions, not words. It added that sovereignty over the West Bank would be achieved not by “boisterous declarations, but by honest work on the ground and the creation of political conditions.”

Trump said in late September that he opposed Israel annexing the West Bank or parts of it. According to media reports, the US president's clear declaration was a condition for Arab countries to support his peace plan for the Gaza Strip. These countries, like the UN and European countries, oppose possible annexation.

Jerzy Adamiak (PAP)

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