Netanyahu says he’s in talks with Trump on settlement annexation

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he’s been in talks with US President Donald Trump’s administration on a “historic” initiative to annex Israeli settlement areas in the West Bank.

“I can tell you that for a while now I’ve been talking about it with the Americans,” Netanyahu tells a faction meeting of his Likud party.

“I’m guided by two principles in this issue… optimal coordination with the Americans, whose relations with us are a strategic asset for Israel and the settlements, and it must be a government initiative rather than a private one because it would be a historic move,” he adds.

His remarks come with coalition lawmakers seeking to advance a bill that would apply Israeli sovereignty over all areas of Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

But the bid encountered obstacles on Sunday, when the heads of coalition parties pulled the so-called Sovereignty Bill — drafted by Yoav Kisch (Likud) and Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) — from the agenda of a meeting on the coming week’s legislative timetable.

Last Thursday, a spokesman for a senior member of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation told The Times of Israel that Netanyahu had pulled the legislation from its agenda in order to provide time to coordinate the measure with the White House.

— with Marissa Newman