Will Trump really cut ties if Israel goes ahead with West Bank annexation?

When President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw US backing of Israel over Tel Aviv’s move to annex the occupied West Bank, he took aim at the very core of Washington’s policy towards the Zionist state – unconditional ironclad support.

Trump’s threat coincided with the Israeli parliament – backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right and ultranationalist allies – held a preliminary vote to advance a bill for the annexation of the West Bank. 

The move angered the US, as it feared that Israel’s move could jeopardise a fragile ceasefire Trump had brokered in Gaza between Hamas and Tel Aviv with the help of Muslim and Arab states like Türkiye, Egypt and Qatar. 

The reactions from US leaders were swift and vitriolic.

"If this were a political stunt, it’s a very foolish one. I personally take offence to it," said Vice-President JD Vance of the Israeli legislation’s timing. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a lifelong supporter of the Zionist state, warned the Netanyahu government that the move could lead to the collapse of the Gaza peace process. 

A senior US official did not hold back as he used slang words to express the Trump administration’s displeasure.

As pressure mounted on Israel, Netanyahu tried to deflect the issue, claiming that the annexation legislation was a result of “provocation” by the opposition.

Does Trump mean what he says? 

But will Netanyahu, who recently said that Israel is not “a protectorate” of the US and can take its own security decisions, take the Trump administration’s threat seriously? 

“It is taken very seriously here,” says Alon Liel, a former director general in the Israeli foreign ministry, adding that Israel’s far-right groups can not decide on the annexation agenda. 

Far-right lawmakers – including ministers in the cabinet – have pushed Netanyahu on their agenda of the so-called ‘greater Israel’ and permanent takeover of all Palestinian lands, including the occupied West Bank and Gaza. 

But Liel draws attention to the fact that “without an American permit”, this far-right Israeli agenda can not “move ahead”.

Trump's warning against the annexation is “preventing it from happening”, which he believes carries critical importance for moving toward stabilisation and peace between Israelis and Palestinians, Liel tells TRT World. 

But given the US’s history with Israel and Trump’s unpredictability, Palestinian writer and political analyst Kamel Hawwash is unsure how much weight the US President’s threat carries. 

Trump's language has been much stronger against Israel in the past week, he says, but he is still “not convinced” that the US President will do what he says. 

Despite brokering the Gaza ceasefire deal and signing an agreement at the recent peace summit in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Trump has skirted questions on Palestinian statehood, which Muslim and Arab leaders say is a must for permanent peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. 

“Where this is heading is not quite clear,” Hawwash tells TRT World, referring to the ceasefire and Trump’s 21-point Gaza peace plan.

Despite his recent public stance, Trump had earlier backed Israel’s West Bank annexation plan, according to a leaked secret letter in 2022. 

Experts also see a Qatar effect behind Trump mounting pressure on Netanyahu. 

Israel’s September attack on the Qatari capital of Doha – targetting Hamas negotiators – had shocked the world and angered the US president and his close circle, including son-in-law Jared Kushner and peace envoy Steve Witkoff, both American Jews. 

During a 60 Minutes interview, both Kushner and Witkoff said the Qatar attack reinforced the thinking in the US that the Israelis are “getting out of control”. 

Hawwash believes that by mounting pressure on Netanyahu, Trump might be trying to rein in the Israeli government. So much so that during his US visit in late September, Netanyahu was forced to call up Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, and apologise for the Doha airstrike.

“The attack on Qatar had the biggest impact on Trump’s thinking…that if Israel tries and bombs one of the countries that's trying to bring an end to the Gaza fighting, then that's going beyond the pale,” he says, alluding to the Netanyahu administration’s propensity to cross the boundaries of morality.

Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, connects Trump’s threat against Netanyahu with the upcoming visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, whom the US administration is trying to persuade to normalise ties with Israel by joining the 2020 Abraham Accords. 

Last week, Israel’s far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich retracted his insulting comments against Saudi Arabia in which he had said that Tel Aviv should reject Riyadh’s offer of normalisation in exchange for a Palestinian state, advising the Saudi leadership to “keep riding camels in the desert”. 

Hassan, however, feels that Riyadh is unlikely to normalise ties with Israel at this juncture. 

How far will Israel go? 

Analysts say that Netanyahu’s actions over the past two years have been dictated by his desperation to cling to power, which is only possible with the support of his far-right allies.

Apart from facing a corruption trial, Netanyahu has also seen public support slip away over his handling of the Gaza war, especially the hostage issue. 

For now, ​​Netanyahu could delay or find a way of delaying a future vote if he wants to, but the far-right groups don't actually think in the terms of a normal democratic state, Hawwash says. 

“They think in terms of achieving the Biblical view that they have and that international law doesn't apply to Israel.”

While Netanyahu halted the recent Israeli annexation legislation in the face of Trump’s opposition, all Likud party ministers of his government urged early this year to annex Judea and Samaria, the Jewish Biblical names of the West Bank. Netanyahu is Likud’s longtime leader. 

Hassan believes that the annexation legislation will likely move on in the Knesset because it has widespread support from Israeli lawmakers. Netanyahu stopped it for now because he faced “the extreme pressure” of the US administration, she says. 

But this pressure does not mean that the US administration supports the two-state solution from which Trump “stood down”, she says, referring to Trump’s vague reaction to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s mention of Palestinian statehood solution during a recent visit to the White House. 

In fact, Trump said that he disagrees with Starmer on the UK's recognition of the Palestinian state. 

In June, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also said that Washington no longer pursues the two-state solution. 

In the face of these statements from the Trump administration, “annexation at this point would not be such a deviation from where the US position is,” Hassan adds. 

But the US – alongside its Western and Muslim-Arab allies – also knows that if Israel annexes the occupied West Bank right now, the Gaza ceasefire will collapse,  something Trump does not want to see, she adds. 

Hawwash agrees, saying that despite Israeli far-right pressure through different sabotage tactics, including annexation, the US will not want to see a return to fighting. 

“The US would begin to see that Israel is not acting even in its own self-interest and that Trump might try to bring it to some sense,” he adds.