Speaker of the House Mike Johnson made a private trip to settlements in the West Bank as Israeli leaders push for a full annexation of the Palestinian territory.
John spoke on Monday at the Ariel Municipality, one of the largest illegal settlements in the region — becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to do so.
The gesture of support comes as Israeli Cabinet members are calling for the government to seize the “moment of opportunity” and seize full control of the region from the Palestinian Authority.
Senior U.S. officials in charge of relations with Israel have already signaled a changing platform regarding the possibility of Israel outright annexing the West Bank.
In June, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said that the U.S. is no longer interested in the prospect of a Palestinian state.
“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” he told Bloomberg.
Regarding where the millions of Palestinians native to the West Bank will live, Huckabee asked: “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?”
Judea and Samaria is the Biblical name of the West Bank — the larger enclave of the Palestinian territories on the Western bank of the Jordan River, and home to approximately 3 million ethnic Palestinians.
Republicans Overseas Israel Chairman Marc Zell — who lives in the Israeli settlement of Tekoa in the West Bank — claimed on Monday that Johnson used similar Biblical terminology when visiting Ariel.
“Speaker Mike Johnson says that the mountains of Judea and Samaria are the rightful property of the Jewish People,” Zell wrote on social media about Johnson’s remarks at the settlement. “He criticizes those erstwhile allies of Israel who are calling to recognize a Palestinian state.”
Zell’s summary of Johnson’s remarks was not official. The actual text and content of Johnson’s speech have not yet been released.
Certain Israeli officials’ intentions for the West Bank are becoming increasingly clear.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defense Minister Israel Katz — close political allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — issued a joint statement to Israeli media last week emphasizing that the current political climate presents an “opportunity” to take control of the Palestinian territory.
“Ministers Katz and Levin have been working for many years to implement Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. At this very moment, there is a moment of opportunity that must not be missed.”
ISRAELI DEFENSE AND JUSTICE MINISTERS PUSH FOR FULL ANNEXATION OF WEST BANK
“This was expressed, among other things, in the work done by Minister Levin during President Trump’s first term, in which all the necessary things were prepared for the important move – from a proposal for resolutions to precise maps, and Defense Minister Katz led a series of unprecedented decisions to strengthen settlement and pave the way for Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” the statement continued.
The statement was framed as a reply to a Channel 14 report that the two ministers were not preparing for such an annexation, which they called “false.”
Such an unprecedented move would almost certainly generate an international uproar as various Western allies of Israel are already moving to recognize a sovereign Palestinian state in response to ongoing starvation in the Gaza Strip.