Vance rebukes “stupid” vote in Israel to annex the West Bank

Vice President JD Vance rebuked a vote by Israel’s parliament to extend sovereignty over the West Bank, in defiance of an earlier commitment by President Trump, calling it stupid and insulting.

“The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel,” the Vice President said.

A bill applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, which effectively would annex the territory for Israel, passed a vote Wednesday in Israel’s parliament as Vance was visiting the country, according to Reuters.

It was the first of four votes needed for the proposal to become law. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s Likud Party did not back the legislation, which was pushed by lawmakers outside his ruling coalition, the news agency added.

“That was weird. I was sort of confused by that,” Vance told reporters on Thursday when asked about the vote. “Now I actually asked somebody about it, and they told me that it was a symbolic vote, some symbolic vote to recognize or a symbolic vote to annex the West Bank. I mean, what I would say to that is when I asked about it, somebody told me it was a political stunt, that it had no practical significance, it was purely symbolic.”

“I mean look, if it was a political stunt, it was a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it. The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel,” Vance added.

Following Vance’s comments, a top member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party announced Thursday that the Israeli prime minister told him not to advance proposals regarding the annexation of the West Bank, according to Israeli media.

“The Knesset vote on annexation was a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Israel. The two bills were sponsored by opposition members of the Knesset,” Netanyahu’s office wrote on X.

“The Likud party and the religious parties (the principal coalition members) did not vote for these bills, except for one disgruntled Likud member who was recently fired from the chairmanship of a Knesset committee. Without Likud support, these bills are unlikely to go anywhere,” it added.

While some in Israel want Israel to continue their war with Hamas, and annex the West Bank, the Netanyahu government seems to recognize that they cannot defy the United States too much, or they will have no powerful backers.