Trump's Vice President Comments on Knesset Vote to Annex the West Bank

US Vice President J.D. Vance criticized the Israeli Knesset's vote to annex the West Bank, saying it was an "insult" and contradicted the Trump administration's policies and efforts to ensure the U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza holds.

The Knesset narrowly passed a symbolic preliminary vote on Wednesday supporting annexation of the occupied West Bank—an apparent attempt to embarrass Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while Vance was in the country, according to the Associated Press.

The bill was sponsored by hardliners in the Knesset and joined by only one member of Netanyahu's Likud party. With Netanyahu's opposition, the bill is unlikely to pass the multiple votes needed to become law.

While many members of Netanyahu's coalition, including Likud, support annexation, they have backed off from those calls since U.S. President Donald Trump stated his opposition to such a move last month.

As he left Israel, Vance said on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv that if the Knesset vote was "a political trick, it was a very stupid political trick."

Vance added that he considered it a personal insult, emphasizing that the Trump administration's policy is not to cede the West Bank to Israel.