Netanyahu to Push West Bank Annexation Plan on Sunday

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman says the Israeli leader will ask his Cabinet on Sunday to approve his plan to annex parts of the West Bank.

Jonathan Urich made the announcement on Twitter late Tuesday, shortly after Netanyahu joined President Donald Trump for the unveiling of a new U.S. peace plan.

The plan calls for leaving the strategic Jordan Valley and all Israeli settlements under Israeli control.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line nationalist allies are calling for the immediate annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank in reaction to President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan.

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s defense minister, said the proposal offers Israel “an opportunity to determine the territory of our country” and “include all the Israeli settlements in the land of Israel within the sovereign state of Israel.”

Bennett, a hawkish member of the religious nationalist Yemina party, said that Israel “cannot wait until after the elections, and won’t be satisfied with partial sovereignty — take it all now.”

Ayelet Shaked, Israel’s former justice minister and Bennett’s running mate, said Israel is at “a historic moment” and also called for unilateral annexation of West Bank land.

“The dangerous part of the plan, that is the establishment of a Palestinian state or recognition of a Palestinian state, won’t happen,” she wrote on Twitter.

(Story written By MATTHEW LEE and ARON HELLER/AP and AP staff)