• Israel’s security cabinet repealed decades-old land laws Sunday to make it easier for Jewish settlers to purchase property throughout the West Bank
• Netanyahu moved his Washington visit up by a week to lobby Trump on Iran nuclear talks, while eight Muslim nations condemned the West Bank measures as illegal annexation
• The timing forces Trump to balance a stated opposition to annexation with his close alliance with Netanyahu ahead of a second round of US-Iran negotiations

WASHINGTON, DC (TDR) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lands in Washington this week carrying two agendas that cut in opposite directions. One is public: an urgent Wednesday meeting with President Donald Trump to discuss US-Iran nuclear negotiations after envoys held indirect talks in Oman last Friday. The other is structural: security cabinet decisions approved Sunday that fundamentally alter Israel’s legal authority over the occupied West Bank in ways critics across the region are calling de facto annexation.

The two tracks are connected. Netanyahu’s civilizational framing of the US-Israel relationship — he declared at the Western Wall in December that without the ancient Maccabees, “there would be no United States” — is designed to position Israel as indispensable to American civilization itself. That narrative serves as diplomatic cover for policy moves that increasingly test the boundaries of what even a sympathetic administration will tolerate.

What the Security Cabinet Actually Changed

The decisions approved Sunday by Israel’s five-member security cabinet target the legal architecture that has governed the West Bank since Israel’s occupation began in 1967. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a joint statement outlining changes that experts say amount to the most significant shift in West Bank governance in decades.

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The measures repeal a Jordanian-era law that kept land registries confidential and remove a requirement for civil administration permits to purchase property. Any Israeli citizen can now buy land in the West Bank without government approval or inspection. Smotrich described the changes as removing “bureaucratic barriers” and “deepening our presence throughout the Land of Israel.”

“We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state.”

That was Smotrich’s explicit framing — not a paraphrase, not an interpretation. The finance minister who also serves as deputy defense minister stated the policy objective plainly.

The cabinet also expanded Israeli enforcement authority into Areas A and B of the West Bank. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, these zones were designated as under Palestinian Authority security control or joint control. The new measures authorize Israeli forces to conduct monitoring, enforcement and potentially demolitions in these areas — effectively erasing the administrative distinctions Oslo established.

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Hagit Ofran of the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now called the decision a step toward formal annexation.

“The decision to allow every Israeli the right to buy land in the West Bank without government approval, without inspection, is also another way of saying it’s normal life. It’s not occupied territories, it’s like part of Israel.”

The Yesha Council, which represents settlers, celebrated the decisions as “the most important in 58 years” and declared that the Israeli government is now stating “in practice” that “the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.”

The International Response

The reaction was swift. Eight Muslim-majority nations — including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the UAE and Turkey — issued a joint statement condemning the measures as violations of international law intended to impose “unlawful Israeli sovereignty.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas labeled the decisions “dangerous” and called on both the United States and the UN Security Council to intervene.

“These decisions are a continuation of the comprehensive war waged by the occupation government against the Palestinian people and an unprecedented escalation targeting the Palestinian presence.”

In Hebron, Issa Amr of Youth Against Settlements described the ground-level effect.

“It becomes easier to confiscate land, easier and faster to expand settlements and easier to demolish Palestinian homes.”

The International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion in 2024 finding that Israel’s policies in the West Bank “amount to annexation” and violate international law’s prohibition on acquiring territory by force.

What Wednesday’s Meeting Is Really About

Netanyahu originally scheduled his Washington visit for Feb. 18-22. He moved it up by a full week at his own request, according to a White House official cited by Axios. The urgency stems from the Oman talks.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday in Muscat. Trump called the discussions “very good” and said more were planned. Netanyahu’s official statement revealed precisely why the prime minister rushed to Washington: concern that the US might pursue a narrow nuclear deal leaving out Israeli priorities.

“The prime minister believes that any negotiations must include restrictions on ballistic missiles and an end to support for the Iranian axis.”

That language reveals the gap between the two allies. Washington appears open to engaging Tehran on nuclear issues. Netanyahu wants the scope expanded to cover Iran’s missile program and proxy support. The fear in Jerusalem, as The National reported, is that Netanyahu is losing influence over US policy direction.

Khaled Elgindy of the Quincy Institute assessed the dynamic bluntly.

“Gaza is not a priority. I don’t see Gaza as being a major source of contention.”

That assessment carries implications for the West Bank decisions. If Gaza governance is not a flashpoint in the Wednesday meeting, and Iran dominates the conversation, the security cabinet moves may pass without serious American pushback — despite Trump’s own September 2025 statement that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.

“I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. I will not allow it. It’s not going to happen.”

That was Trump less than five months ago. The question Wednesday is whether the security cabinet’s measures — which Peace Now describes as functional annexation without the formal label — test that line or stay just beneath it.

The Civilizational Narrative as Diplomatic Architecture

Netanyahu’s framing of Israel as the foundation of Western civilization is not rhetorical decoration. It is a strategic communications architecture that serves specific policy goals. At the Western Wall in December, he told US Ambassador Mike Huckabee that had the Maccabees failed, there would be “no Judeo-Christian civilization” and “no United States.” In January, he told evangelical leaders in Florida about an “eighth front” — an ideological battle for Western hearts and minds. With Secretary of State Marco Rubio in September, he described Israel as “the front line of American civilization here in the Middle East.”

This narrative reframes settlement expansion not as violations of international law but as defense of civilization itself. It positions criticism of Israeli policy as hostility toward Western values. And it gives sympathetic American politicians a framework for supporting territorial moves that the broader international community condemns.

The European Centre for Populism Studies analyzed this pattern as “civilizational populism,” noting that Netanyahu positions Israel as “a protective wall that protects Western Civilization from the Islamist barbarians.” International relations scholar Stephen Walt observed that a civilizational approach to US foreign policy “can justify close ties with Europeans” but “not Israelis.”

Meanwhile, Netanyahu told The Economist in January he wants to “taper off” the $3.8 billion in annual US military aid to zero within a decade, saying Israel has “come of age.” Senator Lindsey Graham responded by calling for an accelerated timeline. The juxtaposition is notable: Israel as the indispensable guardian of American civilization, but also as a nation that no longer needs American financial support.

What Comes Next

Wednesday’s meeting arrives at a convergence point. The US-Iran diplomatic channel is open for the first time in years. Israel’s security cabinet has moved the West Bank further toward irreversible annexation. Netanyahu faces domestic elections by October, and his far-right coalition partners are pushing him toward maximalist positions.

The policy question is whether functional annexation — removing land purchase barriers, extending enforcement into Areas A and B, expanding settlement infrastructure — triggers the same American response as formal annexation. If it does not, the distinction becomes academic.

When a nation positions itself as the civilizational foundation of its closest ally while simultaneously pursuing territorial policies that ally has explicitly opposed, does the rhetorical architecture eventually collapse under the weight of the policy contradictions — or does it provide enough diplomatic insulation to make the contradictions irrelevant?

Sources

This report was compiled using information from Reuters’ coverage of Arab state condemnation of Israel’s West Bank measures via Al-Monitor, CNN’s reporting on Israel tightening its grip on the West Bank, The National’s analysis of the Trump-Netanyahu meeting agenda, Axios’ reporting on Netanyahu’s urgent visit, CNBC and NBC News’ coverage of the Iran talks context, PBS News’ reporting on the Oman negotiations, Fox News’ coverage of Netanyahu’s evangelical outreach, the State Department transcript of the Rubio-Netanyahu press availability, Al Jazeera’s analysis of de facto annexation measures, the European Centre for Populism Studies’ analysis of Netanyahu’s civilizational populism, The Jerusalem Post’s reporting on Netanyahu’s military aid comments, and the Atlantic Council’s legal analysis of West Bank annexation proposals.

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