Israel drawing up map for West Bank annexations: Netanyahu

Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has begun to draw up maps of land in the occupied West Bank that will be annexed in accordance with U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump puts his hands on Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's shoulders as they deliver joint remarks on a Middle East peace plan proposal in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 28, 2020. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

“We are already at the height of the process of mapping the area that, according to the Trump plan, will become part of the state of Israel. It won’t take too long,” Netanyahu said at an election campaign rally in the Maale Adumim settlement.

Netanyahu said the area would include all Israeli settlements and the Jordan Valley - territory Israel has kept under military occupation since its capture in the 1967 Middle East war but which Palestinians want in a future state.

“The only map that can be accepted as the map of Palestine is the map of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital,” said Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Prospects for annexations, which have already been widely condemned, are unclear.

Israel will hold a national election on March 2 and Netanyahu, who is facing criminal corruption charges, is hoping to win a fifth term in office. He presently heads a caretaker government, whose legal authority to annex territory is still undecided by judicial authorities.


Settlers make up part of Netanyahu’s right-wing voter base and many members of his coalition cabinet view the West Bank as the biblical heartland of the Jewish people.

Most countries consider Israeli settlements on land captured in war to be a violation of international law. Trump has changed U.S. policy to withdraw such objections.

Palestinians say the settlements make a future state non-viable. Israel cites security needs as well as biblical and historical ties to the land on which they are built.

Trump’s plan envisages a two-state solution with Israel and a future Palestinian state living alongside each other, but it includes strict conditions that Palestinians reject.

The blueprint gives Israel much of what it has long sought, including U.S. recognition of settlements and Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.

A redrawn, demilitarized Palestinian state would be subject to Israeli control over its security, and would receive tracts of desert in return for arable land settled by Israelis.


Right after Trump presented the plan on Jan. 28, Netanyahu said his government would begin extending Israeli sovereignty to the settlements and the Jordan Valley within days.

But Washington then appeared to put the breaks on that and Netanyahu has since faced pressure from settler leaders to annex territory despite any U.S. objections.


Israel plans West Bank annex after ‘deal of century’

February 9, 2020

An Israeli settlement in the West Bank on 19 November 2019 [Mosab Shawer/Apaimages]

February 9, 2020 at 11:36 am


Israel’s prime minister said his government has begun editing West Bank maps to include areas his country plans to annex, reports Anadolu Agency.

The move comes after US President Donald Trump released a “deal” to end the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Benjamin Netanyahu said lands that will be part of Israel are at the mapping stage and sovereignty will be applied to all land covered by the map, according to daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

Netanyahu said the new map will cover all the illegitimate settlements in the West Bank and the Agvar region.

READ: Israel is taking vengeance on Palestine for rejecting ‘Deal of the Century’

But Nabil spokesman for the Palestinian Authority president, Nabil Labu Ruedina, said the map of Palestine is recognized globally, according to United Nations resolutions.

“We will not have any relationship with any other map,” he said and indicated the current map belongs to the state dating June 4, 1967, whose capital is East Jerusalem.

Ruedina said it is the only map that will provide stability and peace in the region and the world.

Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” was announced January 28. It refers to Jerusalem as “Israel’s undivided capital” and recognizes Israeli sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank.

The plan has drawn widespread criticism from the Arab world and was rejected by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which urged “all member states not to engage with this plan or to cooperate with the US administration in implementing it in any form.”

Leaders of the Muslim bloc reiterated a need for a just and comprehensive solution that protects the rights of Palestinians.