Israel backs down from plan to annex the West Bank after warning from the United Arab Emirates.
West Jerusalem was caught off guard by the warning, the Washington Post reported.
RT - A public warning from the United Arab Emirates led the Israeli government to abandon a planned discussion on the annexation of the West Bank, the Washington Post reported. A senior UAE diplomat reportedly told Israeli media earlier this week that the move would be a "red line" that would block Israel's path to regional integration.
According to local media, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to discuss the matter at a key government meeting on Friday. On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates' special envoy, Lana Nusseibeh, told the Times of Israel that annexation "would rule out the idea of regional integration."
"For every Arab capital you talk to, the idea of regional integration is still a possibility, but annexation to satisfy some of the radical extremist elements in Israel will take that off the table," she stated.
The United Arab Emirates was the first Arab nation to normalize relations with Israel in over a quarter of a century, under the Abraham Accords, brokered by US President Donald Trump during his first term.
Abu Dhabi's public warning "came as a surprise," an Israeli official told the Post, calling the situation "very unusual."
On Thursday, the issue of annexation was removed from the agenda of the Israeli ministerial meeting, according to the newspaper.
Washington has not yet taken a position on the matter. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the potential annexation as "not definitive" earlier this week, adding that he "would not comment on it."
The West Bank returned to the spotlight earlier this year after a group of Israeli ministers called for the territory to be formally annexed. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated that control could be regained at any time.
Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and has been actively building settlements there – which is widely considered illegal by the international community. Israel came close to annexing the region in 2020, but abandoned the idea in exchange for normalizing relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.