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Israel Drawing Up Map for West Bank Annexations, NetanyahuSays

Reuters

   JERUSALEM - Israel has begun to draw up maps of land in the occupied
   West Bank that will be annexed inaccordance with U.S. President Donald
   Trump's proposed peaceplan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said
   Saturday.

   "We are already at the height of the process of mapping the area that,
   according to the Trump plan, will become part of thestate of Israel. It
   won't take too long," Netanyahu said at anelection campaign rally in
   the Maale Adumim settlement.

   Netanyahu said the area would include all Israelisettlements and the
   Jordan Valley --territory that Israel has keptunder military occupation
   since its capture in the 1967 MiddleEast war but thatPalestinians want
   in a future state.

   "The only map that can be accepted as the map of Palestineis the map of
   the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders withJerusalem as its
   capital," said Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman forPalestinian President
   Mahmoud Abbas.

   Prospects for annexations, which have already been widelycondemned, are
   unclear.

   Election in March

   Israel will hold a national election on March 2 andNetanyahu, who is
   facing criminal corruption charges, is hopingto win a fifth term in
   office. He presently heads a caretakergovernment, whose legal authority
   to annex territory is stillundecided by judicial authorities.

   Settlers make up part of Netanyahu's right-wing voter baseand many
   members of his coalition cabinet view the West Bank asthe biblical
   heartland of the Jewish people.

   Most countries consider Israeli settlements on land capturedin war to
   be a violation of international law. Trump has changedU.S. policy to
   withdraw such objections.

   Palestinians say the settlements make a future statenonviable. Israel
   cites security needs as well as biblical andhistorical ties to the land
   on which they are built.

   Two-state plan, with conditions

   Trump's plan envisages a two-state solution with Israel anda future
   Palestinian state living alongside each other, but itincludes strict
   conditions that Palestinians reject.

   The blueprint gives Israel much of what it has long sought,including
   U.S. recognition of settlements and Israelisovereignty over the Jordan
   Valley.

   A redrawn, demilitarized Palestinian state would be subjectto Israeli
   control over its securityand would receive tractsof desert in return
   for arable land settled by Israelis.

   Right after Trump presented the plan on January28, Netanyahusaid his
   government would begin extending Israeli sovereignty tothe settlements
   and the Jordan Valley within days.

   But Washington then appeared to put the brakeson that andNetanyahu has
   since faced pressure from settler leaders to annexterritory despite any
   U.S. objections.

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