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News > U.S.

Concerns Over Israeli Annexation Plans Overblown: Trump Aide

  • Conway said US officials were currently discussing whether Trump should give Netanyahu the green light on the annexation plan.

    Conway said US officials were currently discussing whether Trump should give Netanyahu the green light on the annexation plan. | Photo: AFP

Published 24 June 2020
Opinion

The counselor suggested that regional and international concerns over previous U.S. actions have not borne out.

Counselor to United States President Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, has described concerns over Israel's project to annex parts of the occupied West Bank and Jordan Valley as exaggerated, Al Jazeera has reported.

RELATED: UN Chief Urges Israel to Abandon Annexation Plan of West Bank

Responding Wednesday to reporters on the White House lawn, Conway belittled the reactions from regional Arab countries and Palestinians, who have roundly condemned Israel's plan, saying it would kill the negotiations process and prospects of a future Palestinian state.  

The counselor compared the situation to Trump's controversial decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2017, as well as his decision to withdraw the U.S. from climate change reduction commitments in the Paris Accord that same year.

She suggested that regional and international concerns over those actions have not borne out.

"The same thing was predicted. That there would be mayhem and murder and death and destruction ... When he pulled out of the Paris Accord, we're all going to die the next day, we're going to melt to death," she said. "He moves the embassy to Jerusalem; the Arab world was going to disappear. Thank God that wasn't true."

"There's always this scare tactic, shock the conscious tactic of all the bad that's going to happen, and then it doesn't happen," she said.

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has planned to begin the annexation process from July 1, as part of a so-called "peace plan" presented in January by Trump.

Conway said U.S. officials were currently discussing whether the president of the U.S. should give Netanyahu the green light on the annexation plan. She added that Trump would be making a "big announcement" soon. 

Wednesday's comments came as the United Nations Security Council held the same day the last major international meeting on the issue before the July 1 deadline. 

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told state members "annexation would constitute a most serious violation of international law".

The West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, is seen as occupied territory under international law, making all Jewish settlements there, as well as the planned annexation,  illegal.

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