Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday unveiled a proposal for Israel to annex 82 percent of the West Bank, even as the United Arab Emirates warned that such a move would spell the end of Israel’s integration into the Middle East.

The plan, unveiled together with a map of proposed borders on Wednesday, is the most concrete expression thus far of growing momentum in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government to apply Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank in response to a range of Western countries plan to recognize a Palestinian state. Smotrich and other longtime proponents of Israel annexing the territory say their moment has come, despite international warnings against such a move.

“The broad consensus for sovereignty is a direct result of a deep understanding that we can never allow an existential threat to establish itself among us, and after decades of hesitation, it is time to state this clearly and act accordingly,” Smotrich said on Wednesday in a joint statement with Israel Ganz, who heads the Yesha Council, an umbrella body for West Bank settlements.

Using the biblical name for the West Bank, they added, “It is time to apply Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and remove once and for all the idea of dividing our small land and establishing a terrorist state in its heart.”

Smotrich, who chairs the far-right Religious Zionism party and is in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank, supports annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, and is an adamant opponent of Palestinian statehood. He has taken other steps to entrench Israel’s control of the West Bank in recent weeks, including advancing plans to build in a critical north-south corridor east of Jerusalem known as E1. On Tuesday, the Defense Ministry declared a large swath of the West Bank to be state land.

“Continuing to build and establish,” Smotrich posted on X in reference to that decision. “Removing the danger of an Arab terror state from the agenda.”

His proposal comes as the future of the West Bank is once again at the center of global debate, and as annexation has regained a place in high-level government discussions. Several Western countries are due to recognize a State of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly this month, with France reportedly considering opening up an embassy in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.

In response, Netanyahu is reportedly planning to convene a meeting of ministers on Thursday, including Smotrich, who will discuss applying Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank as a possible retaliatory measure. Earlier this year, the Knesset approved a non-binding motion to annex the West Bank by a vote of 71-13.

Smotrich’s plan came with a map that, if implemented, would absorb the vast majority of the West Bank into Israel while leaving six Palestinian population centers as islands in its midst. Those six areas are Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Jericho and Hebron, perhaps the tensest flashpoint in the West Bank.

“Preventing a Palestinian state is an Israeli consensus,” read a statement attached to the map. “Sovereignty takes the idea off of the global agenda.”

His plan, the statement said, aims for “maximum territory and minimum Arab population.”

The plan would constitute a departure from how the West Bank has long been governed. Israel has controlled the territory since it captured it from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. For more than three decades, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority has governed day-to-day affairs in Palestinian population centers.

The territory is now estimated to be home to more than 500,000 Israeli settlers, in addition to millions of Palestinians. Much of the international community says Israel is illegally occupying the West Bank and views the settlements as a violation of international law, which Israel disputes.

Smotrich dismissed the threat of opposition from the PA.

“We are done surrendering to threats and intimidation. If the Palestinian Authority dares to rise up and try to harm us, we will destroy them just as we do Hamas,” he declared on Wednesday, calling on Netanyahu to convene the government to approve applying sovereignty.

“And you, Mr. Prime Minister, will enter the nation’s history books for generations as a great leader who knew how to seize the moment, take advantage of the opportunity, and save Israel once and for all from the idea of dividing the land and the existential threat euphemistically called a ‘Palestinian state,’” he said.

This is not the first time the Israeli government has weighed annexation. A 2020 peace plan put forward by US President Donald Trump envisioned Israel annexing much of the West Bank, with a Palestinian state established in its remainder. Netanyahu at the time vowed to move forward with partial annexation.

But later that year, Israel forwent annexation in favor of signing the Abraham Accords, normalization deals with four Arab countries.

On Wednesday, five years after that agreement, Lana Nusseibeh, an envoy for the United Arab Emirates, told The Times of Israel that Israeli annexation would be a “red line” that would “end the vision of regional integration.”

“Annexation would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace. It would foreclose the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution,” she said in an interview.

Nusseibeh isn’t the only official to warn against major changes in the West Bank. US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, who has previously personally favored Israeli control of the West Bank, told Smotrich and other ministers that Washington is extremely concerned about the possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority, according to a report by Channel 12.

The PA doesn’t have enough money to pay salaries, as Smotrich has ordered the withholding of funds that are usually transferred to Ramallah.

“If the Palestinian economy collapses, that is nobody’s victory,” Huckabee told Channel 12, adding that “desperate people do desperate things.”

Lazar Berman, Jacob Magid and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.