UAE envoy: De facto West Bank annexation unfolding, but our ability to stop it wanes

United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the United States Yousef al-Otaiba said Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is engaged in a process of de facto annexation of the West Bank, and that it may be up to other countries weighing normalization with Israel to stop it.

Appearing on a panel during a Washington event marking the three-year anniversary of the Abraham Accords, Otaiba was asked for Abu Dhabi’s perspective of the hardline Israeli government and its policies in the West Bank, which critics have referred to as “de facto annexation.”

“It’s tough because it is happening, and I think it’s happening in a way that is not visible and is going to make coming back to a two-state solution even more challenging,” Otaiba said. READ MORE