TEL AVIV—The cascade of Western governments recognizing a Palestinian state this week has been met in Israel by calls from ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to permanently snuff out that idea by annexing the West Bank.
The problem for Netanyahu is that doing so would upend years of effort to normalize Israel’s relations with the Arab world under the Abraham Accords, agreements that President Trump counts as the signature foreign policy success of his first term.
Netanyahu has promised a strong response to growing recognition of a Palestinian state, and annexing all or part of the West Bank represents his most forceful option.
Short of annexation, analysts said, Israel could take steps to further squeeze the Palestinian economy. Or it could curb consular ties with France, a leader of the effort to recognize a Palestinian state, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Netanyahu said Sunday he would announce his response when he returns from the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York City. “Stand by,” he said.
With Israel’s international isolation deepening, the Israeli leader must weigh whether ending Palestinian hopes for a state is worth damaging relations with the Arab world and potentially the U.S.
The Abraham Accords established diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Israel agreed to drop a proposed annexation of parts of the West Bank as a condition for reaching agreement with the United Arab Emirates.
Arab states have warned that annexation could undermine the agreements or at least prevent their expansion, which in turn would dent Trump’s hopes of establishing his legacy as a peacemaker.
International pressure has piled up on Israel to end the two-year war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel that left around 1,200 people dead and another 251 as hostages. The ensuing conflict has left much of the territory in ruins and killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don’t say how many of the dead were combatants.
In a move that showed how deeply the war’s human toll has shifted global attitudes around Israel, Australia, Canada and the U.K. said Sunday they would formally recognize a Palestinian state, joining an initiative led by Saudi Arabia and France.
Ahead of the declarations, calls for annexation have been growing in Israel from ministers on the right and even members of Netanyahu’s Likud party.
“Sovereignty is not just the most proper Zionist response, but also this is simply our land, the land of our forefathers,” wrote Shlomo Karhi, Israel’s communications minister and a member of the Likud party, in a post on X Sunday. “We must declare today—full sovereignty now! And don’t settle for less.”
Netanyahu himself has fanned support for annexation. Facing a difficult election in 2019, he rallied support with a campaign pledge to annex the Jordan Valley, a fertile strip of land along the West Bank’s border and the Dead Sea that already is largely under formal Israeli control.
Under Netanyahu, Israel has steadily expanded construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, while Netanyahu’s increasingly far-right government has asserted more control over the area’s security and finances. Israel recently decided to move ahead with a controversial settlement project that would isolate key Palestinian communities and complicate prospects for a Palestinian state.
“He needs to keep on placating his base, and talking about annexation is the way to do it,” said Josh Krasna, a former Israeli diplomat who is now director of the Israel-based Forum for Regional Cooperation and a professor at New York University. “Now, he has to either go through with his threat or be seen as someone who doesn’t carry things out.”
Annexation is seen as a red line by Arab states. If Israel were to abandon its commitment not to annex the West Bank, the U.A.E. in particular would face tough questions over why it continued to uphold its end of the deal.
Throughout the past two years of conflict, the U.A.E. has served as a crucial conduit between Israel and the outside world, maintaining economic and diplomatic ties and keeping international flights running when other countries didn’t. Annexation could lead to a suspension of ties or other downgrades to the relationship, political analysts say.
“I think that the U.A.E. has made it very clear that any step regarding annexation will cause a crisis between the Arab world and Israel, and mainly it’s a risk for the Abraham Accords,” said Michael Milshtein, a former senior officer in Israeli military intelligence and a specialist on Palestinian affairs at Tel Aviv University.
Arab governments have warned Israel in private diplomatic messages that annexation of the West Bank, be it full or partial, would have consequences such as downgrading relations, according to Arab officials.
How the U.S. might react is unclear. A senior administration official said the U.S. realizes Netanyahu will retaliate against the recognition of Palestinian sovereignty and will likely support the response. Whether that would remain the case if the Abraham Accords were threatened, however, is a bigger question.
“If something were to happen to the accords—a failure or crisis or collapse—I think that Trump will be very concerned,” Milshtein said.
Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, a lecturer in government at Harvard University who studies civil-military relations, said Trump’s red lines aren’t yet clear. His administration has given Netanyahu more leeway than that of former President Joe Biden, but has at times shown frustration with unilateral Israeli moves such the strike on Hamas officials earlier this month in Qatar, a key U.S. ally. Netanyahu is also being pushed by his right wing.
“He has a problem right now, and it’s that different components of his coalition may decide to leave,” Krasna said. “This has all happened before, but it’s coming at a very bad time for him.”
Write to Feliz Solomon at feliz.solomon@wsj.com
