Jordan, UK censure Israeli plan to consolidate Palestine occupation

Jordan and Britain have voiced their opposition to Israel's controversial scheme to annex parts of the occupied Palestinian territory, saying the land grab bid endangers peace and breaches international law.

Speaking in a video conference with US congressional leaders and committees on Tuesday, Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned that Israel’s push for annexation threatens stability in the Middle East.

“Any unilateral Israeli measure to annex lands in the West Bank is unacceptable and undermines the prospects of achieving peace and stability in the region,” he said.

According to a royal palace statement, Abdullah also stressed that peace would only come with the creation of an “independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state” with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.

He further said that Israel had to withdraw from territory it occupied during the Six-Day War in 1967.

Israel’s coalition administration, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, plans to impose its “sovereignty” over West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley — some 30 percent of the West Bank — as of July 1. The Tel Aviv regime has kept its illegal grip on the area since 1967.

US President Donald Trump gave Tel Aviv the green light for the land grab in his self-proclaimed “deal of the century,” which was unveiled in January with the aim of legitimizing Israel’s occupation and re-drawing the Middle East map.

Netanyahu: Israel may pursue annexation in stages amid lack of coalition consensus

The Israeli premier says the regime may pursue gradual annexation of occupied Palestinian territories amid differences in his coalition administration over the controversial scheme.

Jordan — one of two Arab countries with official diplomatic ties with Israel — has threatened to review its relationship if Tel Aviv goes ahead with its controversial annexation plan.

Abdullah reportedly refused on Monday to take phone calls from Netanyahu to discuss Israel’s scheme for consolidating its occupation of Palestinian land.

Also on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the annexation plan violates international law.

Asked in the House of Commons about possible sanctions on Tel Aviv if it goes ahead with the move, Johnson replied, “I believe that what is proposed by Israel would amount to a breach of international law. We have strongly objected. We believe profoundly in a two-state solution and we will continue to make that case.”

‘UAE opposed to annexation, but wants ties with Israel’

In another development on Tuesday, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash called for closer cooperation with the regime in Israel as the two sides speed up their controversial normalization attempts.

He reiterated Abu Dhabi’s opposition to Israel’s planned West Bank annexation, but claimed that his country’s policy was “decoupling the political from the non-political.”

“Can I have a political disagreement with Israel but at the same time try and bridge other areas of the relationship? I think I can. I think that is fundamentally where we are,” he told a US-Jewish online conference.

“The UAE is clearly against any annexation as is being proposed by the current Israeli government. Having said that, that is the political domain. Do I have to really look at all the other domains and make them almost static because of the political domain?"

The Emirati minister also argued that the decades-long Arab boycott of Israel has not yielded the desired results, advocating for “open lines of communications” with the regime and increased liaison areas such as technology and health.

“I think we can come to a point where we come to a given Israeli government… and say, we disagree with you on this [annexation], we don’t think it’s a good idea, but at the same time there are areas, such a COVID, technology and other things, where we can actually work together,” he said.

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