Although former US special envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt said he supports the Abraham Accords, he told Army Radio on Tuesday morning that he still “supports the application of Israeli sovereignty” over Judea and Samaria.
"I think it's important to look at the word that was chosen by the three parties and the official statement, which is the word 'suspend,’” Greenblatt said. “As you know, I am myself a big proponent of recognizing Israel's sovereignty and application of Israeli law.”
Greenblatt stressed that he still believes the areas of West Bank are not occupied – “never occupied Palestinian territories,” he said, “which is wrong.”
He made his comments only days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed agreed to move toward normalizing relations, with the help of US President Donald Trump and the American administration.
The deal is part of the US “Peace for Prosperity” plan, which Greenblatt originally helped orchestrate.
Since the Abraham Accord was revealed, the US administration, through senior adviser Jared Kushner, has stressed that annexation has been tabled for now, while Netanyahu has insisted that it is still on the table.
Greenblatt told the radio that he supports the agreement because he believes that Israel "needs to fight this fight slowly."
"You have to deal with this step by step. You have to re-educate the public from the decades of misinformation that was given out to the rest of the world about the reality of the conflict, about the reality of Judea and Samaria, the reality of Jewish history in Judea and Samaria," Greenblatt said. "I think we need to be patient and let the prime minister and the government of Israel do what they do best."
In response to a question about whether or not the UAE entered the agreement to get access to various high-grade items of military equipment and sophisticated weaponry from the Trump administration, Greenblatt said he did not know.
"There's a reason things happen behind closed doors, because people misinterpret or misconstrue things,” he said. “So I'm not going to get into what might have happened behind those closed doors. But I will answer directly that I have full confidence in the Trump administration and the Israeli government – that they would never agree to a deal that would, for a second, put Israel in danger."