‘Time to stop’: Trump vows Israel will not annex Judea and Samaria

Arab and Muslim countries warned Trump about what they described as the grave consequences of any annexation of Judea and Samaria.

By Reuters and Algemeiner

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would not allow Israel to annex Judea and Samaria, rejecting calls from some politicians in Israel who want to extend sovereignty over the area where the Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-governance.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced some pressure from allies to annex Judea and Samaria, prompting alarm among Arab leaders, some of whom met on Tuesday with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope, I will not allow it. It’s not going to happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“There’s been enough. It’s time to stop now,” he said.

Trump made the comments as Netanyahu was arriving in New York to deliver an address to the United Nations on Friday.

Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks. Israeli settlements have grown in size and number since Israel took control of Judea and Samaria, part of the ancestral Jewish homeland, in a 1967 war.

Trump met leaders and officials from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan on Tuesday to discuss the nearly two-year-long war in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Arab and Muslim countries warned him about what they described as the grave consequences of any annexation of Judea and Samaria — a message the US president “understands very well,” according to Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud.

About 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in Judea and Saamria and Jerusalem.