Donald Trump
Donald TrumpReuters

Gulf states recently sent a warning to the White House that "a green light for Israeli annexation would severely hamper the administration's efforts to recruit Gulf states to support President Trump's peace plan and cause them to step back," Channel 12 News reported on Saturday.

The Gulf states reportedly made it clear to the White House that such a move will not only seriously hamper relations but will put an end to the attempts at public rapprochement with Israel.

The report follows the op-ed published on Friday in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper by Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the United States, in which he urged Israel to abandon plans pushed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to extend Israeli sovereignty over roughly 30% of Judea and Samaria as part of the larger Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan.

“A unilateral and deliberate act, annexation is the illegal seizure of Palestinian land. It defies the Arab – and indeed the international - consensus on the Palestinian right to self-determination,” wrote Al Otaiba.

Al Otaiba said the sovereignty plan would “send shock waves” across the Middle East, rocking other moderate Arab states, like Jordan.

Al Otaiba’s opinion piece came weeks after several ranking officials from moderate Arab countries told Israel Hayom that Arab states allied with the US tacitly accept the sovereignty plan.

The report drew criticism from the Palestinian Authority, which demanded “clarification” from Arab states, lamenting that they had received no denial of the Israel Hayom report.