Settler leaders and far-right government ministers renewed public pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex parts of the West Bank and not end the war in Gaza without the total military defeat of Hamas, in an attempt to counteract American pressure on both issues.

US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. I will not allow it. It’s not going to happen,” comments that were rejected by right-wing Israeli lawmakers.

And the Trump administration has drafted a 21-point plan, obtained by The Times of Israel, to end the war and free all the hostages, while encouraging Palestinians to remain in the Strip, removing Hamas from power, and creating a pathway toward a future Palestinian state.

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said Wednesday he expected a breakthrough related to Gaza in the coming days. Witkoff noted that Trump had presented his ideas during a meeting with Arab and Islamic countries on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly earlier in the week.

But the plan’s creation of a potential pathway to a future Palestinian state could well be a red line for Netanyahu, who has long campaigned on having prevented a two-state solution. The premier told the UN General Assembly on Friday: “Giving the Palestinians a state one mile from Jerusalem after October 7th is like giving Al-Qaeda a state one mile from New York City after September 11th. This is sheer madness. It’s insane, and we won’t do it… Israel will not allow you to shove a terror state down our throats.”

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Ahead of Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump on Monday, the premier and his team are expecting that Israel will have to make “painful and significant” concessions under the American plan, Channel 12 news reported Saturday, without citing sources.

These include concessions that would “contradict Israel’s stated policy and the decisions taken by the cabinet in recent weeks,” particularly regarding the plan’s call for the gradual expansion of Palestinian Authority involvement in postwar Gaza, according to the network.

The report added that the US was currently exerting “heavy pressure” on Qatar to push Hamas to agree to the details of Trump’s plan in the coming days, in an effort to shift the diplomatic demands entirely onto Netanyahu and Israel.

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The Kan public broadcaster reported that Netanyahu had voiced dissatisfaction to Trump advisers with some of the plan’s provisions, particularly the one envisioning an eventual role for the Palestinian Authority in ruling Gaza.

The outlet added, however, that sources close to the premier had said the majority of the plan is acceptable to Israel, and that a final agreement can be reached.

In an apparent attempt to counteract the external pressure, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on X Saturday that Netanyahu “has no mandate to end the war without the complete defeat of Hamas.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, according to Channel 12, laid out three key demands in relation to the Trump peace plan: that there be no role for the Palestinian Authority in governing Gaza or the West Bank; that Hamas be completely dismantled and disarmed; and that Israel annex parts of the West Bank without recognizing a Palestinian state.

Smotrich, who heads the Religious Zionism party, has long opposed Palestinian statehood and has pressed for extending Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank and Gaza, where he has called for renewed Israeli settlement.

Some other politicians allied with the premier, however, stressed the need to wrap up the almost two-year war.

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Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar tweeted that, while he trusts Netanyahu to “represent Israel’s interests in the talks with President Trump,” he also believes that “the distinct Israeli interest is to end the war and achieve its goals.”

Degel Hatorah faction chief Moshe Gafni of the United Torah Judaism party, which has left the government and coalition but isn’t acting to topple the government, said his faction supports “ending the war and returning the hostages.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid reiterated his longtime point that he is willing to give Netanyahu’s government a safety net in order to reach a hostage deal and end the war even if Ben Gvir and Smotrich threaten to bring down the government over the matter.

Meanwhile, the Yesha Council settlement umbrella group was sending an “emergency delegation” to the United States to meet Netanyahu before the latter’s meeting with Trump.

The West Bank mayors, council heads and other officials were set to tell the premier that the territory should be under full Israeli sovereignty, and that the decision was his alone, despite Trump’s remark that he wouldn’t allow annexation.

“Only sovereignty in Judea and Samaria is victory,” said Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan in a statement by the Yesha Council, using the biblical name of the West Bank. “Disagreements can also happen between friends, and Netanyahu is precisely the one who can stand up and tell the United States that this is what is good for the nation of Israel.”

“We strengthen the prime minister in the face of the heavy pressure,” said Ariel Mayor Yair Chetboun. “The decision whether to extend sovereignty is in his hands alone, not in anyone else’s.”

By JAN YUMUL in Hong Kong | China Daily | Updated: 2025-09-27 11:22

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivers his address remotely to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, describing what Israel carried out as “one of the most horrific chapters of human tragedy in the 20th and 21st centuries”. LI RUI/XINHUA

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stood his ground that Israel was not merely carrying out just “aggression”, but committing a “war crime and crime against humanity”, as he rejected the “Greater Israel” plan during his virtual address on Thursday at the United Nations General Assembly.

He called out the “extremist Israeli government” for its continued settlement project in the West Bank despite international rejection, even including from Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States, as Abbas reiterated the need for an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional delivery of aid and the end of using starvation as a weapon.

US President Donald Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Thursday that he “will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank” and said there has been enough and that it was “time to stop now”. But Israel’s far-right lawmakers are urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to defy Trump.

Abbas, who addressed the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, received cheers from the audience for appearing via video link after the US refused the Palestinian delegation a visa.

The Palestinian President also noted that a “suffocating siege” has been imposed on an entire people, destroying more than 80 percent of homes, schools, hospitals, churches, mosques and infrastructure.

“What Israel is carrying out is not just aggression — it is a war crime and a crime against humanity, documented and monitored, and it will be recorded in history books and in the conscience of humanity as one of the most horrific chapters of human tragedy in the 20th and 21st centuries,” Abbas said.

In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine, he said, Israel continues implementing colonial policies through illegal settlement expansion and annexation projects.

Abbas pointed out the latest being the construction plan in E1, which divides the West Bank, isolates occupied Jerusalem from its surroundings, “and destroys the two-state solution, in blatant violation of international law and relevant UN Security Council resolutions”.

“Our people must no longer remain hostage to the whims of Israeli politics that continue to deny our basic rights and perpetuate oppression, injustice, and aggression,” he added.

Abbas’ speech comes after a new UN report concluded that the Israeli government “has demonstrated a clear and consistent intent to establish permanent control over the Gaza Strip” while ensuring a Jewish majority in the occupied West Bank and inside Israel.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said Israeli authorities “extensively and systematically” demolished civilian infrastructure in the corridors and buffer zone and continuously enlarged areas under their control, reaching 75 percent of the Gaza Strip by July 2025.

In destroying civilian objects and forcibly transferring the population, the report said, Israeli authorities “deliberately deprived Palestinians in Gaza of resources indispensable for their survival” and deliberately inflicted conditions of life on the Palestinians in Gaza calculated to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in Gaza, “which is an underlying act of genocide”.

Urgent need to ceasefire

“Israel must immediately end and reverse its confiscation and use of Palestinian land in Gaza, including for the creation and expansion of the buffer zone and corridors. It must return all confiscated land to its Palestinian owners,” said Navi Pillay, chair of the commission, adding that Israeli confiscation and control of land did not achieve security purposes but “have deepened the misery of the Palestinian people”.

Belal Alakhras, research fellow at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, said Israeli leadership has “fundamentally miscalculated” the events.

“Israel’s bet that overwhelming brutality to kill tens of thousands, injure many more, and induce famine would crush Palestinian will and restore deterrence has backfired spectacularly. It has apparently shattered their path to regional acceptance, unmasking the raw nature of the occupation for the world to see,” said Alakhras.

He said the gravest mistake, however, is for the international community “to continue treating this as a localized conflict in Gaza”.

For influential factions in both Washington and Israel, the devastation in Gaza is not an endpoint but a blueprint, Alakhras said. “It marks the beginning of a more aggressive, militarized foreign policy intended to reshape the region and beyond,” he added.

jan@chinadailyapac.com

In the final passages of his speech to the UN, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves away from the Palestinian issue to other regional matters.

He says Israel’s “victories over the Iranian terror axis have opened up possibilities for peace that were unthinkable two years ago.”

On Syria, he says, “the very idea of peace between Israel and Syria seemed unimaginable” for decades. But today, “we have begun serious negotiations with the new Syrian government. I believe an agreement can be reached that respects Syria’s sovereignty and protects both Israeli security and the security of the minorities in the region, including the Druze minority.”

He refers to the Druze as Israeli Jews’ brothers in arms. “That’s why I couldn’t sit idly by, nor could Israel sit idly by, while the Druze were being slaughtered by jihadists [in Syria],” he says. “I instructed our forces to stop the massacre, which they promptly did.”

He says peace between Israel and Lebanon “is possible as well,” and calls on the Lebanese government to also begin direct negotiations with Israel. “I commend it for its declared aim to disarm Hezbollah, but we need more than words. If Lebanon takes genuine and sustained action to disarm Hezbollah, I’m sure we can achieve a sustainable peace,” he says. “Of course, until that happens, we will take whatever action we need to defend ourselves and to maintain the conditions of the ceasefire which was established in Lebanon.”

Further afield, he says, while “victory over Hezbollah has made peace possible with our two Arab neighbors in the north, victory over Hamas will make peace possible with nations throughout the Arab and Muslim world.”

He says it would enable “a dramatic extension and expansion of the historic Abraham Accords, which President Trump brokered between Arab leaders and myself five years ago.”

He notes the “encouraging words spoken here by the president of Indonesia” earlier this week, highlighting the imperative for Israel to have security. “This is the country with the largest Muslim population of all nations, and it’s also a sign of what could come.”

“Forward-looking Arabs and Muslim leaders know that cooperating with Israel will provide them with ground-breaking Israeli technologies, including in medicine and science, in agriculture and water, in defense, and AI, and so many other fields,” he says.

Now he moves on to Iran: “I believe that in the coming years, the Middle East will look dramatically different. Many of those who wage war on Israel today will be gone tomorrow. Brave peacemakers will take their place. And nowhere, nowhere will this be more true than in Iran. The long-suffering Iranian people will regain their freedom. They will make Iran great again. Our two ancient peoples, the people of Israel and the people of Iran, will restore a friendship that will benefit the entire world,” he predicts.

Concluding his address, Netanyahu says horrors such as those perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 had “happened countless times during the centuries of my people’s exile among the nations. Jewish blood was cheap. Jews were killed with impunity. We had to beg others to defend us. The rise of Israel did not mean that the attempts to destroy us would end. It meant that we could fight back against those attempts. And that is exactly what Israel has done,” he says.

“Our sons and daughters fought like lions. Our brave soldiers donned their uniforms and rushed into battle. They were armed with the dreams of the hundred generations of Jews who came before them: The dream of living as a free people in the land of Israel, our beloved homeland for more than 3,000 years. The dreams of living in our own independent state, the dream of having an army to defend ourselves, and the dream of being a light unto the nations, a beacon of progress, ingenuity, innovation, for the benefit of all humanity.

“On October 7,” Netanyahu concludes, “the enemies of Israel tried to extinguish that light. Two years later, the resolve of Israel and the strength of Israel burn brighter than ever. With God’s help, that strength and that resolve will lead us to a speedy victory and to a brilliant future of prosperity and peace.”

The Palestinian Authority, Arab countries, and the Gulf Cooperation Council have condemned Israeli plans to annex the occupied West Bank, warning that such a move would escalate regional tensions and undermine the two-state solution.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said early on Wednesday that Israel plans to annex 82 percent of the occupied West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Smotrich said the main principle of the annexation is “the maximum land with the minimum Arab population.”

He called the occupied West Bank annexation “a preventative step” against moves by many countries to recognise Palestinian statehood.

‘Crimes of extermination’

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Israel’s unilateral measures, including settlement expansion and land seizures, will not create any legal right for the occupation in Palestinian land.

It called Smotrich’s statements “a direct threat to the prospects of establishing a Palestinian state” and “an extension of systematic incitement aimed at deepening annexation, displacement, and crimes of extermination.”

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry condemned Smotrich’s “racist” remarks and his “incursion into occupied Palestinian territory”, describing them as a flagrant breach of international law and a challenge to the global consensus on a two-state solution.

Ministry spokesman Sufian Qudah warned that the absence of international accountability only fuels further “aggressive statements and measures” by Israeli officials.

‘Dangerous and provocative’

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara reprimands the government and senior cabinet ministers for threatening not to abide by court rulings, and even having refused to do so, at a retirement ceremony for Supreme Court Justice Yosef Elron.

Listing a series of what she says are efforts to undermine the independence of the judiciary, the embattled attorney general says that “worst of all are calls by senior officials in the executive branch that they do not intend to abide by judicial orders.”

Baharav-Miara adds: “A call not to honor judicial court orders is not a call for judicial reform, it is a call to crush democracy. A country without law.”

Justice Minister Yariv Levin has intimated on several occasions that he will not respect High Court rulings in certain cases, while Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi has openly defied the court’s ruling that the government continue to abide by Baharav-Miara’s instructions in the wake of her dismissal and the High Court’s decision to freeze that dismissal until a final ruling.

Elron himself also apparently references the issue of abiding by court rulings in his speech, saying that “unqualified obedience to the law must be a general norm that binds all citizens and institutions in the country.”

Supreme Court President Isaac Amit says in his speech that the judiciary is “not the property of any person,” in a none-too-subtle reference to Levin and his refusal to appoint new judges to the court.

Levin has refused to appoint new Supreme Court judges since former court president Esther Hayut retired in October 2023. With Elron’s retirement, there will be four empty seats on the court bench.

“Regrettably, the judges’ bench today is not full,” says Amit.

“This is in the spirit of an understanding that the judiciary is not the property of any person; it operates in the service of the public, and for it only,” says the court chief, whom Levin has refused to recognize as such after a hostile confirmation process earlier this year.

Levin spearheaded a far-reaching and controversial law passed in March, which changed the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee and the appointments process for judges, greatly politicizing the process and removing all power over Supreme Court appointments from representatives of the judiciary on the committee.

The law will not come into effect until after the next election, and Levin is refusing to convene the Judicial Selection Committee in its current format as a result.

Speaking at the ceremony, Levin repeated what he says was one of his primary motivations in passing the law, the need to diversify the judiciary. Levin contends that the judiciary and the Supreme Court are dominated by liberal, activist judges who do not reflect the will of the general public, although many court observers believe the current bench is evenly balanced between liberals and conservatives.

“Diversifying the [judicial] system and appointing judges with different backgrounds and worldviews is the path to filling the Supreme Court bench, in a way that will increase its professional strength and restore the public’s trust in it,” says Levin.

At the end of his speech, Elron laments the divided state of Israeli society at present.

“Unfortunately, we live in a time of division and polarization in Israeli society. I hope that the Supreme Court will contribute to healing the rifts in society, with rulings that will bridge the gaps and disputes brought before it,” says the outgoing judge.