Israel says its goal is to destroy Hamas. (document)
Jerusalem:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Israel would not be forced to accept a Palestinian state, after The Washington Post reported that the United States, Israel’s main ally, was pushing ahead with plans to establish a Palestinian state.
“Israel categorically rejects international demands for a permanent settlement with the Palestinians,” Netanyahu said in a statement after a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden. “Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state.”
Netanyahu said statehood would be a “huge reward” for Gaza’s latest war, triggered by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7. He said such an arrangement could only be reached through direct negotiations between the two sides, although no talks had been held since 2014.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that the United States is working on a postwar plan with a number of Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with which Israel has long sought to establish diplomatic ties. The area will include a clear timetable for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Senior Israeli ministers strongly rejected the development on Thursday, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in a West Bank settlement, saying a Palestinian state would pose an “existential threat” to Israel.
A two-state solution, which would create a state for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip alongside Israel, has been core Western policy in the region.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Friday that Netanyahu had launched negotiations only to have them fail again. “The Palestinian state is not a gift or a favor from Netanyahu, but a right conferred by international law and legitimate international resolutions,” it said in a statement.
One of the obstacles standing in the way of Palestinian statehood is the expansion of Israeli settlements in territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, which most countries view as violating international law and isolating Palestinian communities from each other.
Israel has killed more than 28,700 Palestinians in its Gaza offensive, leaving much of Gaza deserted and displacing much of its 2.3 million people, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israel says its goal is to destroy Hamas, whose militants led attacks on southern Israeli towns that Israeli authorities said killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostage.
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