Rubio: West Bank annexation not going to happen, Gaza truce could expand Abraham Accords

US Secretary of State Rubio reiterates the White House’s opposition to Israeli annexation of the West Bank, saying a recent Knesset vote to advance annexation legislation could threaten Washington’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, and adding that he doesn’t expect the bills to pass.

“Suffice it to say, we don’t think it’s going to happen,” he says. He echoes comments from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called the vote a “provocation” from the opposition.

Rubio said he understood that the vote was due to “elements that tried to use it to embarrass Netanyahu” during US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Israel this week.

“More importantly, it’s not, from a legislative standpoint, structured in a way that could happen,” Rubio says. “But it would also threaten this whole process.”

“Everyone has to understand if something like that [annexation] were to happen right now, a lot of the countries that are involved in working on this probably aren’t going to want to be involved in this anymore,” Rubio says, referring to the ceasefire. It’s a threat to the peace process, and everybody knows it.”

He continues, “But I’m not getting to the middle of Israeli politics. We’re focused on peace and security.”

Addressing the prospects of additional normalization deals between Israel and Arab countries in the wake of the ceasefire, Rubio says broader regional normalization “could be a byproduct of achieving some of this.”

Referring to the normalization deals in 2020 between Israel and several Arab countries, he adds, “We’d like to have as many members of the Abraham Accords as possible.”

“I think what we’re doing here could help create the momentum for that to occur,” he says.

He does not say which countries in particular are poised to normalize relations with Israel.

“I’m not going to mention the countries’ names because it’s up to them to announce it,” he adds. “There are some countries you could probably add right now if we wanted to, but we want to do a big thing about it, and so we’re working on it.”