According to a letter revealed by the “Jerusalem Post”, former US President Donald Trump, who recently announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections, authorized Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu to annex parts of the West Bank. Contrary to Jared Kushner’s White House memoir, the letter reveals that Trump gave Netanyahu the green light to annex key areas, under the condition he agreed to a Palestinian state.
In a three-page letter from January 26, 2020, two days before Trump presented his peace vision at the White House, the president summarized some of the final details of his vision, dubbed the "Plan of the Century". These plans included statements saying that Israel could extend sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, as depicted in the map included in the plan if Netanyahu agreed to a Palestinian state in the remaining territory on that map.
Trump, according to the letter actually asked Netanyahu to adopt the "detailed policy regarding those territories in the West Bank that have been identified as part of a future Palestinian state."
@TimesofIsrael is spreading disinformation. Annexation of settlement blocs & Jordan Valley are part of the Trump Peace Plan--only one on the table. UAE only asked for delay in annexation for #AbrahamAccords. @itamarbengvir needs to push Bibi to follow through. #Israel https://t.co/X5K33jAc20
— Marc Frederic (@marc_v27) November 21, 2022
"In exchange for Israel implementing this policy, and officially adopting detailed territorial plans that are not in line with the conceptual map attached to my vision - the US will recognize Israeli sovereignty in those areas of the West Bank that my vision perceives as part of Israel."
The letter did not set a timetable for the recognition of sovereignty. Netanyahu's response stated that Israel would move forward with the sovereignty plans "in the coming days", according to his spokesman, who did not provide the actual note.
Jared Kushner offers a separate narrative of the negotiations between Bibi and Trump. In his memoir, Kushner claims that former US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, went behind his back and that of the president, promising “Bibi that he would get the White House to support the annexation more immediately."
Netanyahu stresses close Israel-US relations are bipartisan in RJC speech: Former president Donald Trump also spoke at the event, claiming that he could have brought Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords. https://t.co/BsfqxHu2vL JPost pic.twitter.com/fs9suUG4D4
— Jewish Community (@JComm_NewsFeeds) November 20, 2022
This report comes in the shadow of Netanyahu saying immediately after his last official White House visit that he would bring the expansion of Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank to a cabinet vote the following week.
The American ambassador to Israel at the time, David Friedman, told reporters Israel could start working towards annexation as soon as it completed its internal process. In Friedman's book, “Sledgehammer”, released earlier this year, the ambassador wrote that the Trump administration did not know that Netanyahu had already put the Jordan Valley up for annexation.
Netanyahu's spokesman, on the other hand, said that in the Prime Minister's letter to Trump ahead of the White House Abraham Accords event, it was stated that he would move forward with his plans in a few days.
