West Bank Archives - Page 2 of 16

If You Screw Up The Gaza Deal, Trump Will ‘Screw’ You, US Official Warns Bibi

CrossFireArabia
October 24, 2025

A senior American official has issued a stark warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if he allows the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas to collapse, he will face severe consequences from US President Donald Trump, Israel’s Channel 12 reported.

Speaking in Hebrew on Channel 12, Axios correspondent said the US official warned him that Netanyahu is “walking a very thin tightrope with President Trump. If he keeps this up, he’ll end up screwing up the deal, and if he screws up the deal, Donald Trump will screw him.”

The comments come amid rising tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv over moves by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to advance legislation tied to the annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank.

According to the report, US Vice President JD Vance, who concluded a diplomatic visit to Israel earlier on Thursday, was taken aback after learning that the Knesset had given preliminary approval to two non-binding annexation-related bills the previous day.

Speaking to reporters at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport before his departure, Vance criticised the vote, saying: “If this was a political stunt, it’s a very foolish one. I personally take offence to it.”

Israeli move angered Trump

An Israeli official told Channel 12 that Netanyahu had been warned several days earlier about the strong backlash such a move would provoke but did nothing to stop the vote from going ahead.

The Israeli Knesset approved both annexation-related bills in a preliminary reading, with three more votes required before they can become law.

The legislation advanced despite open opposition from President Trump, who said last month that he “would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.”

The vote also coincided with Vance’s visit to Israel, part of a wider US diplomatic effort to preserve the Gaza ceasefire that took effect on October 10 according to TRTWorld.

Opinion

Palestinian State and The Poker Game

Dr Khairi Janbek
September 1, 2025

By Dr Khairi Janbek

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a politician above all else. He is dogmatist in rejecting a Palestinian state, and a pragmatist when he talks about it, but all that depends on the position taken by the United States.

Ever since one can remember from the days of the Oslo Agreements, a Palestinian state, as a term swung between two conceptions: A future project on the ground, and a slogan up-in-the-air to pander on, and as many from my generation remember the rather acerbic comment: Gaza-Jericho First of 1993 which came to be the first and the last.

The Israeli government of that time, believed that it would bring the Palestinians to independenance as interlocutors in determining the occupied West Bank of Jordan that came about by discussing the issue through a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.

However, the little that was agreed upon started to be eroded by the first Netanyahu government, which at times implicitly and at times explicitly acted in the way so as to negate the Oslo agreements with impunity.

One would like to say that since then plenty of water has passed under the bridge, but when it comes to the Palestinian issue, it’s always the same water and the same bridge.

At this point one must say that everywhere in the media there are supposedly leaks and plans about the day after with regards to the Gaza Strip. However, the only consensus between the international community at large and officialdom of the Arab world, is that Hamas should surrender its weapons. But really what happens next?

Silence in the Arab world rules the scene which is in a way saying what cannot be said, which is in other words don’t involve us directly but we shall try to do what we can. This is habitually the Arab position in always being reactive rather than active.

And now on the international scene is the big drive to recognize a Palestinian state, which is for the time being affirming a point of principle, and towards which Israel is actually debating the annexation of the West Bank, as if to say, if the West Bank is reoccupied by Israel, where is this Palestine you want to recognize?

And adding insult to injury, the Washington administration has refused entry to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the PNA leadership to attend the UN General Assembly meetings. This indicates that it does not recognize that there is a leadership of the Palestinians.

However, and despite saying this, one wishes to be able to say that we might be jumping the proverbial gun, in the sense that, the issue is just a matter of tit-for-tat telling states: You recognize Palestine we take measures to counter that, but alas the Israeli annexation was contemplated long before the international recognition of a Palestinian state.

Now, what will it mean if Israel does go ahead and annexes the West Bank and cancels the Palestinian authority? Well, once again the international community, to the exclusion of the USA, will have to consider the West Bank as and Israeli occupied territory, and once again, the world will have to go back to the Security Council for an attempt to resolve the issue.

Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian columnist living in Paris, France.

News

Gaza’s Lost Generation

CrossFireArabia
August 30, 2025

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) sounded the alarm on Saturday over the fate of education in Gaza, warning that more than 660,000 children have been deprived of schooling for a third consecutive year as Israel’s devastating war nears the two-year mark.

“The war in Gaza is a war on children and it must stop. Children must be protected at all times,” UNRWA said in a statement, cautioning that the enclave’s youth are at risk of becoming a “lost generation.”

While schools in the occupied West Bank are set to reopen on Sept. 1, Gaza’s classrooms remain shuttered.

The Palestinian Education Ministry said around 700,000 students in the enclave have seen their schooling suspended under bombardment, with more than 70,000 unable to take high school exams for two consecutive years according to Anadolu.

According to ministry data, Israeli attacks since October 2023 have killed at least 17,000 school students and more than 1,200 university students in Gaza, while injuring tens of thousands more.

In the occupied West Bank, dozens of students have also been killed, wounded or detained by Israeli forces during the same period.

The toll has extended to teachers and academic staff. Nearly 1,000 education workers have been killed in Gaza, and thousands more injured or detained across the Palestinian territories.

Israel has killed over 63,400 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.

Opinion

Greater Israel – A Confused Concept

Dr Khairi Janbek
August 21, 2025

Dr Khairi Janbek

The question of Greater Israel had always been there, swinging between Jewish religion and Zionist politics. Essentially it is a vague concept and interpreted according to the inclination of different groups inside Israel.

When Theodore Herzl talked about the land of Israel he defined it as being between the brook of the Nile and the Euphrates, with the debate being at the time, whether and area between the two rivers or actually all the way to both rivers.

Even when the state of Israel was established, its borders were not defined. It was the 1967 war which ignited the Greater Israel concept among the various Jewish groups with Israel occupying the West Bank, Sinai and the Golan Heights.

However, the recent pronouncements made by the Israeli government regarding this issue, started to ring bells of danger and awakened Arab fears especially, when the world sees Israeli military operations to retake Gaza, putting plans to annex the West Bank of Jordan and occupying territories in South Lebanon, annexing the Golan Heights and moving the Golan Heights and moving further into Syrian territories.

But where did the notion of Greater Israel originally came from, the idea which the father of Zionism Herzl defined? In fact it was taken from the book of Genesis in the Hebrew bible the Tanakh, where God grants Abraham and his descendants a vast expanse of land stretching from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.

Some Israelis refer to a narrower vision mentioned in the Book of Deutronomy, where God instructs Moses to lead the Israelites in taking possession of Palestine, Lebanon, and parts of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Others invoke the Book of Samuel which describes lands secured by Kings Saul and David, including Palestine, Lebanon, and sections of Jordan and Syria. In fact those whom hold those beliefs, the pursuit of Greater Israel, is not merely political, it is the fulfillment of divine mandate, a reclamation of land they see as rightfully theirs.

At the same time, some Zionist currents have used the concept of Greater Israel to advocate for political territorial expansion of the state of Israel maintaining control over the West Bank, claim Gaza and the Golan Heights, parts of south Lebanon as being part of Israel and so on.

Essentially the term Greater Israel can refer to several different concepts depending on the ideological, religious or political context.

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France

News

EU ‘Appalled’ at Israel…

CrossFireArabia
August 19, 2025

The European Union has condemned Israel’s demolition earlier this month of a school in the occupied West Bank village of Aqqaba that was being built with EU and French funding.

The school, torn down by Israeli authorities on August 5, had been intended to serve hundreds of Palestinian children.

In a statement, an EU spokesperson said the bloc is “appalled” by the demolition and “expects its investments in support of the Palestinian people to be protected from damage and destruction by Israel, in accordance with international law”.

France also previously condemned the demolition, stating it is “holding the Israeli authorities to account for this action”.