‘I gave my word to Arab states’: Trump says Israel to lose all US support if it annexes West Bank

CAIRO – 23 October 2025: US President Donald Trump has warned that Israel would “lose all of its support from the United States” if it moves forward with annexing the West Bank.

His remarks was made during an interview with Time magazine, conducted last week and published on Thursday.

“It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries,” the president said, ahead of the Knesset’s vote yesterday to advance a bill aiming to annex the occupied Palestinian territory.

US Vice President JD Vance, who concluded a visit to Israel on Thursday, slammed the Knesset’s vote as “very stupid” and an “insult.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also cautioned that the move to annex the West Bank could jeopardize Trump’s Gaza peace deal currently in place.

The vote marks the first of four needed to pass the legislation and comes despite Trump’s recent statement that he will not allow Israel to annex the territory it took in the 1967 Middle East war.

The 120-seat Knesset gave a preliminary approval of a bill granting Israel authority to annex the West Bank in a 25-24 vote, despite opposition from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party.

Ceasefire in Gaza took effect on October 10, forming the first phase of Trump’s peace plan for the territory after two years of unrelenting Israeli war.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 68,000 people, displaced the majority of population, and plunged the enclave into famine.