Netanyahu: Israel Should ‘Crush’ Palestinian Statehood Hopes
Reports say the Israeli prime minister told a closed Knesset committee meeting that while Israel has an interest in the Palestinian Authority continuing to function, Palestinian aspirations for a sovereign state should be eliminated
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently told members of the Israeli parliament that while Israel needs the Palestinian Authority, it should “crush” Palestinian aspirations for statehood, according to Israeli media reports.
The reports said that Netanyahu was speaking to the Knesset members at a closed meeting of the parliamentary foreign and defense affairs committee last week. He reportedly made the comments during a discussion on the future of the PA, saying that while Israel has an interest in seeing the PA continuing to function, Palestinian hopes of establishing a sovereign state “must be eliminated.”
The two-state solution—one Israeli and one Palestinian—is widely accepted by the international community as the answer to the long and bloody Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For decades, the Palestinians have sought to establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Israel captured the West Bank during the Six-Day War in 1967, and since then more than 700,000 Jewish residents have settled in the territory, including in East Jerusalem. The international community generally views the West Bank as occupied and Israeli settlements as illegal.
The PA, controlled by the Fatah party and led by President Mahmoud Abbas, has full control of part of the West Bank referred to as Area A and partial control over Area B, while Area C is fully administered by Israel. The extremist Hamas movement, which split from Fatah in 2007, controls the Gaza Strip.
Over time, Abbas’ power has eroded. Analysts have said that Netanyahu’s policies consistently weaken the PA in the West Bank while strengthening Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Abbas was elected to the presidency for a four-year term in 2005 but has managed to postpone elections since, significantly damaging his standing among Palestinians.
Attuned to these developments, Israel’s defense establishment has been warning of an impending collapse of the PA for some time.
In the closed meeting, Netanyahu also reportedly said Israel would do whatever was necessary to keep the PA afloat.
“This is a clear-cut reflection of the fact that Israel has fully adopted the paradigm of ‘economic peace,’ by which it promotes the stabilization of the daily lives of Palestinians in the hope that they will be distracted from their national aspirations. It is also the extraction of the fact that Israel has no strategy regarding the Palestinians,” said Dr. Michael Milstein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University and a senior analyst at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Reichman University.
As Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Netanyahu has a record of inconsistency on Palestinian statehood. He voted several times for Israel’s 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip before ultimately resigning in opposition to it. In 2009, after years of opposing the two-state solution, he reversed his position in a pivotal speech at Bar-Ilan University, endorsing the idea of a Palestinian state. That reversal was short-lived and largely due to American pressure.
Netanyahu has never wanted a Palestinian state. He has always believed that Israel could withstand any pressure on the matter, and until now he has played this card very well.
“Netanyahu has never wanted a Palestinian state,” said Dr. Alon Liel, a former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. “He has always believed that Israel could withstand any pressure on the matter, and until now he has played this card very well.”
During years of tension with the Obama Administration, Netanyahu avoided massive settlement construction, keeping him from direct conflict with the White House. When President Donald Trump was in the White House, Netanyahu’s paradigm was strongly endorsed by Washington.
“Netanyahu’s thesis that Israel’s prowess in the international arena and in the Middle East would allow it to just skip over the Palestinians worked until now,” Liel said.
Under Netanyahu’s current government, considered to be Israel’s most right-wing, there has been a sharp increase in settlement expansion, leading to widespread international criticism. This, coupled with other contentious policies, has left the veteran Israeli leader in the cold. Despite having re-entered office last December, Netanyahu has yet to be invited to meet President Joe Biden. The Biden Administration is unhappy with the extreme right-wing direction the Israeli government has taken. It is also concerned about the sweeping judicial reforms Netanyahu appears not to have completely abandoned.
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, especially Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who as part of the coalition agreements has been granted authority over settlement policies—and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, are the focus of criticism from Israel’s allies.
They [Smotrich and Ben Gvir] are really changing the reality on the ground, blurring the Green Line [the pre-1967 demarcation line] and bringing us closer to a one-state solution, with the backing of Netanyahu. Even if there comes a point when Israel will seek to separate itself from the Palestinians, it will not be doable. We are closer and closer to the point of no return.
“They [Smotrich and Ben Gvir] are really changing the reality on the ground, blurring the Green Line [the pre-1967 demarcation line] and bringing us closer to a one-state solution, with the backing of Netanyahu. Even if there comes a point when Israel will seek to separate itself from the Palestinians, it will not be doable. We are closer and closer to the point of no return,” Milstein said.
“Netanyahu is being held by the throat by messianic nationalists,” Liel said.
The timing of Netanyahu’s comment on Palestinian statehood is questionable. At a time when he is seeking an invitation from Washington and also hoping for normalization with Saudi Arabia, such a statement pushes him further away from those two goals.
When Ben Gvir backed recent settler violence against Palestinians, Netanyahu remained silent.
“You can’t send settlers to the hilltops to settle the land and then expect an Israeli flag to be raised in Riyadh,” Milstein said. “Only if Netanyahu will see a very stark warning that his relations with the US, Europe, and the Arab world will be damaged, then he might change course.”
Palestinians maintain that settlement construction undermines the prospects of the two-state solution or any other solution that would lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. As Israel continues to solidify its presence in the West Bank, the possibility of a viable Palestinian state becomes dimmer.
This year marks 30 years since the signing of the Oslo Accords, which were intended to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians and lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
But those goals seem just as distant today.
“The conditions on the ground have changed so greatly that the same lines cannot be drawn anymore,” Milstein said.
For many Jews, the territories in the West Bank, known by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria, are their birthright. The current coalition reflects this ideology.
But those lands are also viewed as a much-needed buffer for the security of Israel.
The signing of the Oslo Accords was followed by years of violence, with enormous loss of life on both sides. Many Israelis and Palestinians alike have been left jaded and pessimistic about the possibility of two states living side by side in peace.
Another hurdle to Palestinian statehood is the internal rifts among the Palestinians, further complicating matters.
“Even though this concept has collapsed, the international consensus remains steadfast,” Liel said. “The two-state solution is still seen by the international community as the only solution to the conflict.”
Facing internal unrest due to the judicial reforms he is promoting, as well as international pressure, Netanyahu is not in the comfortable position he held in previous terms.
“We are very far from a solution, but the international consensus at a time of Netanyahu’s weakening could invite more aggressive pressure, which was previously impossible,” Liel said.
The effects of all this, analysts believe, will be that however much Netanyahu wants to continue shelving it, he will continue to see the two-state solution on the international stage.
