Netanyahu drops West Bank annexation from government’s agenda after UAE warning

Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu removed the West Bank annexation item from the government’s agenda on Thursday, following direct warnings from the United Arab Emirates that the move would endanger the Abraham Accords.

i24 news said the government meeting had been scheduled to discuss extending Israeli sovereignty over large areas of the West Bank. However, the agenda was changed to focus instead on the worsening security situation in the Palestinian territories, amid international expectations that the issue of recognising a Palestinian state will be raised during the UN General Assembly meetings.

The channel, citing unnamed sources, said the UAE warning that annexation was a “red line” threatening the Abraham Accords led Netanyahu to withdraw the matter from Thursday’s cabinet discussion.

It also quoted Israeli officials as saying “the Emirates pressed Netanyahu to abandon plans to discuss applying sovereignty to large parts of the West Bank, warning that annexation would jeopardize the normalization agreement reached in 2020.” 

Israel reached normalisation agreements in late 2020 with Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan, known as the “Abraham Accords.” Saudi Arabia, however, has repeatedly said it will not normalise ties with Israel before the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, a position Netanyahu continues to oppose.

READ: UAE warns Israel’s annexation of occupied West Bank ‘red line,’ threatens ‘regional integration’