Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank would essentially end any remaining possibility of a two-state solution and the pursuit of regional integration, the diplomatic adviser to United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan warned Thursday.

“In these challenging times, the UAE sends a clear message: annexation is a red line and peace through a two-state solution must remain the path forward,” Anwar Gargash wrote on the US social media company X’s platform.

The warning came after UAE Assistant Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Lana Nusseibeh said Wednesday that the West Bank’s annexation would be a “red line” for Abu Dhabi.

“Annexation would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace,” Nusseibeh told The Times of Israel news outlet.

“It would foreclose the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution,” she said.

Israel’s i24 News channel reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has backed away from putting West Bank annexation on the government’s agenda after the United Arab Emirates warned that any such move would cross a ‘red line’ and threaten the Abraham Accords.”

A government meeting scheduled for Thursday would “instead address the deteriorating security situation in the territory as international attention turns toward possible recognition of a Palestinian state at the upcoming UN General Assembly,” it said.

According to Israeli officials, “the Emirates pressed Netanyahu to abandon plans to discuss applying sovereignty to large parts of the West Bank, warning that annexation would jeopardize the normalization agreement reached in 2020,” added the broadcaster.

On Wednesday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel plans to annex 82% of the occupied West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

In 2020, the UAE signed US-sponsored agreements with Israel to normalize relations. Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco also followed suit.

The international community, including the UN, considers Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, to be illegal under international law.

The UN has repeatedly warned that continued settlement expansion threatens the viability of a two-state solution, a framework seen as key to resolving the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu took the issue of annexing parts of the occupied West Bank off the agenda of a top-level discussion on Thursday, after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) made it clear they would consider such a move “crossing a red line”.

Emirati officials also warned senior Trump administration officials against the possibility of such an Israeli move.

“This would destroy the Abraham Accords,” an Emirati official was quoted as saying. “Do not allow Israel to annex parts of the West Bank.”

The 2020 Abraham Accords, which were brokered by the US, saw the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco establish full diplomatic relations with Israel.

Wire encircles the roof of a house at the entrance of the Palestinian market in the old city of Hebron in the West Bank, which was reportedly confiscated the previous night by settlers earlier this week. Photograph: Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images

Newly erected mobile homes set up by Israeli settlers near the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Photograph: Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images

The two far-right parties in Mr Netanyahu’s coalition have been pressing for annexation. Such a move also has the support of the overwhelming majority of Mr Netanyahu’s own Likud party.

Right-wing politicians argue that such a move is the appropriate response to the plans by several western countries to recognise a state of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly this month.

On Wednesday finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionist party, unveiled a plan, endorsed by the Yesha settlers’ council, to annex more than 80 per cent of the disputed territory.

“2025 will be the year of sovereignty in the West Bank,” he said, explaining that his strategy rests on the principle of “maximum territory, minimum population”.

Mr Smotrich’s plan called for Israeli sovereignty over the entire West Bank, with the exception of the major Palestinian population centres, such as Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron.

[ ‘We’ll have nowhere to go’: Israeli settlement plan divides opinion – and the West BankOpens in new window ]

“The Arab population of the West Bank supports Hamas and the destruction of Israel,” he said. “We have no desire to apply our sovereignty over a population that desires our destruction.”

Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and began establishing Jewish settlements there soon after.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews in the area. The settlements are illegal under international law.

Around 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank; they want the territory, along with East Jerusalem and Gaza, as part of a future state – a position supported by most of the international community.

On Wednesday Axios reported differences of opinion in the Trump administration on the issue. Two Israeli officials told the US news outlet that US secretary of state Marco Rubio has indicated in private meetings that the administration would not stand in the way should Israel decide to annex parts of the occupied territory.

The report claimed that the position is not shared by US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who believes that such a move will undermine US diplomatic initiatives in the region.

A spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said this week that “any annexation or settlement activity by Israel is illegitimate, condemned, and unacceptable”.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — A top United Arab Emirates official warned Israel on Tuesday that annexing the West Bank would cross a “red line” that would “end the vision of regional integration,” just two days before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slated to hold a major ministerial consultation on whether to advance the highly controversial move.

“Annexation would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace. It would foreclose the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution,” Emirati special envoy Lana Nusseibeh told The Times of Israel in an interview conducted in the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abu Dhabi.

It was a shocking alarm bell from Abu Dhabi ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Abraham Accords, which the UAE initiated by becoming the first Arab country to normalize relations with Israel in over a quarter-century.

Since then, Emirati officials have insisted that the move was an all-but-irreversible strategic choice, making Nusseibeh’s warning particularly dramatic, as it highlighted how averse the Gulf country is to Israel again considering annexation.

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 is going to take that off the table

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The carefully crafted Emirati message about the potential “strategic loss” was voiced on the record for the first time since the Abraham Accords were signed. It came as Netanyahu geared up to discuss the matter of annexation with a small group of ministers on Thursday, in response to the plans of several major Western countries to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly later this month, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.

The decision to speak directly to an Israeli audience harked back to an op-ed UAE Ambassador to the United States Yousef Otaiba had published on the front page of a top Israeli newspaper just two months before the two countries signed a normalization agreement.

Then too, Abu Dhabi laid out a choice for Israelis as a previous Netanyahu government threatened to annex large parts of the West Bank within weeks.

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“Recently, Israeli leaders have promoted excited talk about normalization of relations with the UAE and other Arab states. But Israeli plans for annexation and talk of normalization are a contradiction,” Otaiba wrote in June 2020.

The op-ed proved critical in laying the groundwork for the Abraham Accords, resonating overwhelmingly with Israelis — 80 percent of whom were shown to back forgoing annexation in favor of a normalization deal.

Netanyahu ultimately walked back from the annexation threat in exchange for diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi in a deal brokered by US President Donald Trump’s first administration.

But The Times of Israel later revealed that the UAE only secured a US commitment not to back Israeli annexation until the end of Trump’s term.

Apparently recognizing the move would carry less weight without US backing, Netanyahu hasn’t gone ahead with it since.

The US commitment’s expiration coincided with the start of the Biden administration, which restored traditional US policy in favor of a two-state solution and adamantly against annexation.

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With Trump now back in office, though, Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners are increasingly adamant that a potential historic window has opened to declare Israeli sovereignty over West Bank settlements, given that the new administration appears either indifferent or supportive of the move.

Those hardliners have identified the recently announced plans of France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Belgium to recognize a Palestinian state as a unique opportunity to finally annex the West Bank, as Jerusalem weighs its response to the unilateral steps, which it deems a “reward” for Hamas’s October 7 onslaught. On Wednesday, indeed, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a proposal to annex 82% of the West Bank, and urged Netanyahu to adopt it.

Accordingly, Nusseibeh also voiced a not-so-subtle message directed at the Trump administration, with which her government has quickly cultivated a close relationship.

We trust that President Trump will not allow the Abraham Accords tenet of his legacy to be tarnished, threatened or derailed by extremists and radicals

“We believe that President Trump and his administration have many of the levers to lead the initiative for a wider integration of Israel into the region,” said the Emirati official, who serves as assistant minister for political affairs and special envoy for UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed.

Nusseibeh most recently was the UAE’s ambassador to the UN. She is seen as a particularly influential Emirati diplomat with close ties to the royal family.

“We trust that President Trump will not allow the Abraham Accords tenet of his legacy to be tarnished, threatened or derailed by extremists and radicals,” she added.

Like Otaiba, the Emirati special envoy appeared to try to direct her message toward the Israeli public, not the government, which polls indicate only has the support of a minority.

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Arguing that annexation would effectively amount to a rejection of the Abraham Accords, Nusseibeh maintained “that choice should be put directly to the Israeli people.”

While the senior Emirati official warned about what Israel stood to lose if it proceeded with annexation, she also made a point of highlighting what Jerusalem could gain if it again shelved the plan.

Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, are still open to normalizing ties with Jerusalem, she indicated.

But they are conditioning such a move not just on the withdrawal of annexation plans but on Israel agreeing to establish a credible, irreversible pathway to a future Palestinian state. Still, they haven’t foreclosed the idea entirely, despite massive opposition to Israel’s prosecution of its nearly two-year war against Hamas.

“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 is going to take that off the table,” Nusseibeh said.

She asserted that Abu Dhabi did not come to this conclusion lightly.

“When Hamas tried to derail the Abraham Accords vision of regional integration with the October 7 terror attacks, we were firm in our response,” the special envoy said, highlighting the UAE’s immediate condemnation of the assault and recognition of Israel’s security concerns, while also “closely coordinating” to deliver more aid to Gaza than any other country.

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“Over the last two years… our view was that the vision of the Abraham Accords remains pertinent — that you can’t let extremists set the trajectory of the region,” she said.

But with Israel taking increasingly far-reaching steps to entrench its presence in the West Bank and Gaza, she said, “we are worried that all of us in the Middle East are moving toward a point of no return” and that now is the time to reach out to Israelis before efforts to maintain Israel’s ties to regional partners are “irreparably damaged.”

“The Abraham Accords’ tenets of prosperity, coexistence, tolerance, integration and stability” have “never looked more under threat than [they are] today,” she said.

Nusseibeh assured Israelis that an off-ramp exists. “There is an outstretched hand, despite all of this misery, in the region to Israel. But, “annexation would withdraw that hand,” she said.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed away from putting West Bank annexation on the government’s agenda after the United Arab Emirates warned that any such move would cross a “red line” and threaten the Abraham Accords.

The meeting, scheduled for Thursday, will instead address the deteriorating security situation in the territory as international attention turns toward possible recognition of a Palestinian state at the upcoming UN General Assembly.

According to Israeli officials, the Emirates pressed Netanyahu to abandon plans to discuss applying sovereignty to large parts of the West Bank, warning that annexation would jeopardize the normalization agreement reached in 2020.

A senior Emirati official said the Accords would be “seriously undermined” if Israel pursued unilateral steps. The warning came just a day after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Israel to annex 82 percent of the territory, remarks that drew a sharp rebuke from Abu Dhabi.

Defense officials have described the West Bank as being in an explosive state, citing economic crisis and political instability, even as military operations have led to a temporary drop in attacks. They cautioned ministers that the region could “instantly erupt” if the government pushed ahead with annexation.

The pressure from the UAE adds to wider regional unease over Netanyahu’s recent comments about a “Greater Israel.”

In an interview with i24NEWS, he suggested sympathy for the idea of including not only the West Bank but also areas of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. That prompted strong protests from Amman and Doha and a public statement of anger from Cairo. Following weeks of diplomatic lobbying, Netanyahu later issued a clarification in English saying Israel had no territorial claims against its Arab neighbors. Egyptian and Jordanian leaders privately described the shift as a “diplomatic success,” though tensions remain strained by the war in Gaza and the unresolved future of the West Bank.