Crystal Dike
US Vice-President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have criticised a move by Israel’s parliament towards annexation of the occupied West Bank.
On Wednesday, far-right politicians in the Knesset gave preliminary approval to a bill that seeks to apply Israeli law to the territory, which Palestinians claim as part of a future independent state.
At the end of a trip to Israel, Vance described the move as “a very stupid political stunt,” while Rubio, speaking before flying to Israel, warned that annexation would threaten President Donald Trump’s plan to end the conflict in Gaza.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the vote as “a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord.”
A statement from Netanyahu’s office stressed that his right-wing Likud party and its ultra-Orthodox coalition partners did not support the bill, “except for one disgruntled Likud member who was recently fired from the chairmanship of a Knesset committee.” It added that without Likud’s backing, the bill was unlikely to advance further.
Speaking before his departure from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, Vance reiterated US opposition to annexation. “The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel,” he said. “If people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that. But we certainly weren’t happy about it.”
In an interview with Time magazine, President Trump also ruled out annexation, saying: “I gave my word to the Arab countries. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”
Israel has established around 160 settlements housing about 700,000 Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since capturing the territories in the 1967 Middle East war. Approximately 3.3 million Palestinians live there. The settlements are deemed illegal under international law — a view reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice in an advisory opinion last year.
While Netanyahu has in the past expressed support for annexing parts of the West Bank, he has refrained from advancing such plans to avoid straining relations with Washington and Arab states that have normalized ties with Israel.
Ultra-nationalists in his coalition have repeatedly demanded annexation, but the bill was introduced by lawmakers outside the government. It narrowly passed its preliminary reading by 25 votes to 24.
The legislation will now move to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee for further discussion and must pass three additional readings to become law.
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the vote, saying Israel had “no sovereignty over Palestinian land.”
Before leaving for Israel, Rubio told reporters that annexation would be “counterproductive” to President Trump’s Gaza peace plan. “The president’s made clear that’s not something we’d be supportive of right now. We think it’s even threatening to the peace deal,” he said.
His visit followed trips by Vice-President Vance and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as Washington pushes for the start of talks on the second phase of Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan.
The first phase — involving a ceasefire, partial Israeli withdrawal, and increased aid deliveries — took effect earlier this month. Despite mutual accusations of violations, the truce has largely held.
Rubio expressed cautious optimism about the progress of the peace plan. “Every day there’ll be threats to it, but I think we’re ahead of schedule,” he said. “The fact that we made it through this weekend is a good sign.”
The second phase of the plan calls for an interim government in Gaza, deployment of an international stabilization force, withdrawal of Israeli troops, and disarmament of Hamas.
The Gaza war began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Since then, more than 68,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, figures the UN considers credible.