Headlines
No Palestinian state if elected, says Netanyahu
Jerusalem, March 16
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has struck down hopes of a Palestinian state if he
was re-elected in Tuesday's national elections, according to media
reports on Monday.
Confirming that "there will be no Palestinian
state", Netanyahu said: "I think that anyone who moves to establish a
Palestinian state and evacuate territory gives territory away to radical
Islamist attacks against Israel," Xinhua reported citing Israeli
media.
Netanyahu is trying to get more votes from far-right
Israeli voters at the expense of the nationalist Jewish Home party, as
polls from last week have shown the centre-left Zionist Union list
gaining a four-seat lead on the Likud, in the upcoming elections.
Netanyahu's
statement contradicts his 2009 Bar-Ilan speech, in which he expressed
his support for a two-state solution to end the conflict with the
Palestinians.
In the famous speech, which came under pressure
from the US administration, Netanyahu said that if Israel received a
guarantee for security arrangements and if the Palestinians recognised
Israel as the Jewish people's state, there was room for a future peace
deal to end the conflict through a two-state solution.
The
Israeli leader also criticised the Left, saying that they "have buried
(their) head in the sand time and time again and ignore this, but we are
realistic and we understand".
He said that if the heads of the
Zionist Union list Isaac Herzog (Labour) and Tzipi Livni (Hatnua) won
the elections, they would freeze construction in the West Bank and east
Jerusalem settlements and take orders from the international community.
Earlier
on Monday, during a campaign trail in the east Jerusalem Jewish
settlement of Har Homa, Netanyahu told reporters that if he was
re-elected, he would build thousands of housing units in east Jerusalem,
adding that he and members of the Likud party would make sure that
Jerusalem "stayed united".
Political pundits in Israel believe
that Netanyahu realised that he would not manage to get votes from the
centre-right voters, who left the Likud for Kulanu ("all of us" in
Hebrew).
Therefore, Netanyahu was making a last-minute effort to
gain votes from the hardcore right, who might have left the Likud for
the Jewish Home.
The Palestinians aim to establish a state within
the territories that Israel occupied in the West Bank and Gaza and
annexed in east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War.
Israel and
the Palestinians negotiated between July 2013 and April 2014 as part of
the US-mediated talks, but talks came to a dead end.