"Israel does not have to wait at all, " Friedman added, "the delay is only dependent on internal Israeli processes. " For his part, Netanyahu in his speech said he would begin just such a process, likely as soon as next Sunday, which is where things may heat up both politically (in Israel) and on the ground (in the West Bank). After failing to win re-election twice over the past year, Netanyahu is headed to a third repeat election in early March. Throughout this time he has remained prime minister, albeit at the helm of a transition government. An Israeli government can annex territory through a simple cabinet decision; a transition government, on the other hand, will likely run up against severe legal limitations from the country's attorney general and supreme court, according to Dr. Amir Fuchs, a legal expert at the Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan think tank. "The problem is a transition government—you cannot make any extreme decisions, certainly not those that aren't time sensitive, " he told The Daily Beast.
conspiracy deal will not pass. " More ominously, Abbas vowed to change the functional role of the Palestinian Authority—established in 1993 after the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords—and that he would immediately begin implementation of past decisions taken by key Palestinian political bodies, ostensibly including the suspension of vital Israeli-Palestinian security coordination. Abbas, to be sure, has made these threats before—yet his position now is more acute. Annexation of the West Bank by Israel would, in real terms on the ground, be a paradigm shift after over two decades of peace efforts (as the Trump administration intended). Abbas, 84, finds himself relatively isolated internationally; ambassadors from Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates even attended the Trump-Netanyahu cheer fest at the White House. It is unclear if a meeting of Arab foreign ministers set for this Saturday in Cairo, which Abbas will attend, will produce the desired Palestinian response. The Egyptian government tonight reportedly urged both Israelis and Palestinians to "study" the American plan.