Trump on annexation: ‘Israel is not going to do anything with the West Bank’

Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on October 20, 2025. (SAUL LOEB / AFP)
US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on October 20, 2025. (SAUL LOEB / AFP)

Asked about the Knesset’s advancement of two pieces of legislation to annex parts of the West Bank, US President Donald Trump responds, “Don’t worry about the West Bank.”

“Israel is not going to do anything with the West Bank,” he tells reporters at the White House, in his first comments on the matter since yesterday’s Knesset votes that infuriated Washington.

US Vice President JD Vance, who was in Israel at the time of the votes, called them an “insult.” Trump has previously said he will not allow Israel to annex the territory, an aspiration of some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

In an interview with Time magazine conducted prior to the votes, Trump said regarding West Bank annexation, “Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

Netanyahu’s office has framed the votes as a “political provocation” by the opposition, and said they are “unlikely to go anywhere.”

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