Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Political Affairs, Lana Nusseibeh, stated, “From the beginning, we see the agreements as a means to enable us to continue our support for the Palestinian people and their legitimate aspirations for an independent state.” Nusseibeh added that “the annexation of the West Bank would severely undermine the spirit of the Abraham Accords, which led to the normalization of relations with Israel,” affirming that “Israel’s annexation of the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE.”
Israeli media reported on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seriously moving to apply Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. According to Israel’s Maariv, a meeting was scheduled for Netanyahu to discuss the possibility of applying Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank, but the meeting was postponed until further notice.
The newspaper clarified that “against the backdrop of a wave of announcements from Western countries recognizing Palestine, Netanyahu was scheduled to hold a meeting on this matter, just days before the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where a joint declaration by several Western countries led by France is planned regarding their recognition of a Palestinian state.” The newspaper noted that “the United States will make strenuous efforts to prevent this event from taking place on its soil, following Foreign Minister Marco Rubio’s decision not to allow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to enter the United States.”
It is worth mentioning that Netanyahu proposed the idea of annexing the West Bank and the Jordan Valley in 2020, describing the move as a historic opportunity that occurs only once in a century. The idea of imposing sovereignty over the West Bank and the term “Greater Israel” dates back to post-1967 war, when Israel occupied Palestinian and Arab lands, a term linked to an alleged geographic context about the borders of a state in the region.
Currently, Israel is engaged in a wide-scale war against the Gaza Strip since October 7th, causing the death of over 63,000 Palestinians and injuring around 160,000 others, according to data from the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Meanwhile, Netanyahu rejects all local and global calls to end the war and opposes any internal voices demanding a truce deal.
