The White House will come under unprecedented siege in the coming weeks, spearheaded by aircraft carrier “Ron Dermer” (Israel’s ambassador in Washington) and including the “David Friedman” (US ambassador in Jerusalem) task force along with many other units. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will throw everything he has into this fray: Sympathetic members of Congress, evangelical lobbyists, associates, rabbis, anyone who knows how to exert pressure on President Donald Trump. All will be mobilized for the campaign with the express goal of eliciting a green light from the president for some sort of territorial annexation in the West Bank prior to Israel’s March 2 elections.

The defensive ring around the White House and the commander-in-chief will be no less impressive, led by his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, with the flanks covered by former Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, State Department officials and others. This group invested significant energy over the past two years in mobilizing the support of pragmatic Arab states for Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian “deal of the century,” despite its unprecendented pro-Israel bent. Kushner and Greenblatt know that a lightning settlement annexation move will sound the death knell for Trump’s plan and lead most of the Arab world to disavow it. They will not allow this to happen, but they are facing the most determined, focused, wily and desperate rival ever: Benjamin Netanyahu who is in the throes of the battle of his life.

Netanyahu must have annexation — now. He “sold” the Trump plan to his right-wing supporters with the promise that it would include West Bank land annexation. He was quick to put the cart before the horses when he declared Jan. 28, right after the White House unveiling ceremony, that on Feb. 2 he would bring before the government the proposed annexation of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and the northern shore of the Dead Sea. His associates rushed to issue victorious tweets, but the celebration turned out to be premature. Netanyahu’s eagerness had tripped them up. Had he resisted temptation of making an early announcement and taken the government by surprise at its upcoming weekly session with the proposed annexation resolution, he would have perhaps been able to get away with it and deal with the fury of the White House later. However, the premature announcement prompted an immediate White House backlash that stopped Netanyahu in his tracks. Ambassador Friedman had been vanquished by Kushner and Greenblatt. Friedman serves in two capacities, perhaps even three. His official day job is US ambassador to Israel; unofficially he has also assumed the roles of Netanyahu’s personal ambassador in Washington and the settlers’ special envoy to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. On Jan. 28, he was forced to give up the latter two, at least for now.

“Friedman was the one who pushed Netanyahu to announce immediate annexation,” a senior Israeli diplomatic source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “Not that Netanyahu needed this push — after all, he needs this annexation like oxygen — but Friedman was the one who promised him a tail wind and hinted the White House would look the other way. Friedman was wrong and Netanyahu is paying the price.” And the price is heavy. The settlers, leaders of the political right and Netanyahu’s Likud party had agreed to “swallow” the bitter pill of a future Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem by washing it down with the elixir of annexation. On the morning after, they found themselves facing Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state, but without the annexation, which had been postponed to an unknown date “after the elections.”