US Press
State Department tells Axios the US opposes West Bank annexation
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A State Department spokesperson told the American news site Axios on Friday that the United States does not support Israeli annexation of the West Bank, in the administration's first direct answer to Israel's new settlement tender in E1.
The statement, as Axios published it, reads that as the president has clearly stated, the United States does not support Israel annexing the West Bank, and that a stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administration's goal of achieving peace in the region.
What the statement does not contain is the name of the project that prompted it. The department did not mention E1, and did not criticise the tender Israel issued on Tuesday for seven residential compounds — 1,234 housing units — on the hills between occupied East Jerusalem and the Ma'ale Adumim settlement.
The Times of Israel summarised the same exchange as Washington stressing its opposition to annexation while avoiding any condemnation of the E1 plan.
The distinction Washington is keeping alive#
Annexation in the American formula means a declared change of sovereignty, a Knesset vote of the kind Israeli ministers have pressed for. Building 1,234 homes in the corridor that severs the northern West Bank from the southern one is, in that formula, something else — settlement policy, on which this administration has said very little.
Eight Arab and Muslim states and the president of the European Commission called the E1 plan a dangerous escalation this week, precisely because of what it does to Palestinian contiguity rather than what it declares about sovereignty.
Palestinians in Anata, al-Eizariya and the Bedouin communities of Khan al-Ahmar do not experience the difference. For them the American line preserves a legal category while the road between Ramallah and Bethlehem narrows to whatever detour Israel leaves open.
