With Israel’s current military campaign against the Palestinians now more than fourteen months into its run, newly elected President Donald Trump has avoided saying whether he would allow the US-backed country to annex the occupied West Bank under his new administration.
The Republican spoke to Time Magazine as part of the newspaper’s decision to name him its 2024 Person of the Year on Thursday. The former and incoming president spoke, among other things, about inheriting a foreign policy that includes Israel’s US-funded attacks on occupied Palestinian territories and surrounding countries.
“I don’t want people getting killed, you know?” Trump, who has previously said Israel needs to “solve the problem,” told the magazine. “I don’t want people on either side to be killed, and that includes Russia, Ukraine, or the Palestinians and the Israelis and all the, you know, different entities that we have in the Middle East.”
Time Staff asked Trump directly whether he would pursue a two-state deal as outlined in his first administration’s Peace to Prosperity plan — a position that many leaders in the West, including President Joe Biden, publicly support as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. conflict – or if he were willing to let Israel annex the occupied West Bank, as far-right politicians have demanded.
“I support any solution we can do to achieve peace. There are other ideas than two states, but I support whatever it takes to achieve not only peace, [but] a lasting peace,” he said, without answering the question. ‘It can’t continue if you end up in a tragedy every five years. There are other alternatives.”
A banner congratulates newly elected President Donald Trump on winning the US presidential election, in Jerusalem on November 7, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Trump on his victory, calling it “the greatest comeback in history” and a new beginning in the USA Israeli alliance. Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images
The Palestinian territories consist of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The West Bank is home to many Palestinian families, although they have long faced segregation, forced evictions and violence by both Israeli soldiers and settlers residing there in defiance of international law. Human rights groups label the attacks as acts of apartheid.
For decades, Israel’s right-wing politicians have advocated the annexation of the West Bank, which would amount to a human rights violation and undermine any possibility of securing a two-state solution. The US has largely opposed annexation of the West Bank, with the Biden administration warning of consequences for settlers who attack Palestinians in the area.
Most of the people Trump has said he will nominate to serve in his administration are extremely pro-Israel — including Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and Mike Huckabee as Ambassador in Israel. Huckabee has expressed support for the settlement movement and for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank.
“There has never been an American president who has been so instrumental in securing and understanding Israel’s sovereignty,” Huckabee told Israel Army Radio in November. “I absolutely expect this to continue.”
During Trump’s first term, there were 33,000 new Israeli homes in the West Bank, almost three times as many as during former President Barack Obama’s second term. But in 2020, Trump had stopped Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from annexing the territory as part of a normalization deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem on May 23, 2017. Sebastian Scheiner via Associated Press
When Time staffers pointed out the latter, Trump still wouldn’t say whether he would let Israel annex the West Bank this time, responding: “We’ll see what happens.”
“I want long-lasting peace. I’m not saying this is a very likely scenario, but I want a long-lasting peace, a peace where in three years we won’t have October 7 anymore. And there are countless ways you can do that,” he said, before adding, “We have some huge world problems that we didn’t have when I was president.”
Over the past year, Israel has focused most of its attacks on Gaza, making the area uninhabitable and killing at least 44,000 Palestinians – a likely undernumber, experts say – after Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people and captured 250 in a attack on October 7. , 2023, about southern Israel.
Since Israeli forces invaded Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank have also faced an increase in settler and military violence. According to the United Nations, Israelis killed at least 770 Palestinians in the area between October 7, 2023 and November 30, 2024.
An Axios report states that Trump told Netanyahu that Israel must end its military campaign in Gaza before he comes to power. The prime minister, who was also in office during the first Trump administration, has not given the new president any guarantees about ending the war – but Netanyahu is probably feeling “very confident” and “knows that I want it to end is coming,” Trump told the magazine.
“Do you trust Netanyahu?” Time staff asked Trump.
He replied, “I don’t trust anyone.”
