Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday rejected calls for Palestinian sovereignty following talks with US President Joe Biden about Gaza\u2019s future, suggesting Israel\u2019s security needs would be incompatible with Palestinian statehood. <\/p>\n
\u201cI will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan \u2013 and this is contrary to a Palestinian state,\u201d\u00a0Netanyahu\u00a0said in a post on X <\/p>\n
The Israeli leader did not provide any other details in his one-line post\u00a0in Hebrew.\u00a0The territory west of Jordan encompasses\u00a0Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Hamas-run Gaza, where Israel is battling the militant group following the October 7 attacks. <\/p>\n
Biden and his top officials \u2014 including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who\u00a0visited Israel and the region\u00a0last week \u2014 have said the creation of a Palestinian state with guarantees for Israel\u2019s security is the only way to finally bring peace and stability to the Middle East. <\/p>\n
United Nations\u00a0Secretary\u00a0General\u00a0Antonio Guterres on Sunday called\u00a0opposition\u00a0to\u00a0a\u00a0two-state\u00a0solution\u00a0\u201cunacceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe refusal\u00a0to\u00a0accept the two-state\u00a0solution\u00a0for Israelis\u00a0and Palestinians,\u00a0and the denial of the right\u00a0to\u00a0statehood for the Palestinian people,\u00a0are\u00a0unacceptable,\u201d Guterres posted on X. <\/p>\n
Amid reports the US, Egypt and Qatar want Israel to join a new phase of talks with Hamas, Netanyahu this weekend also publicly rejected what he characterized as Hamas\u2019 terms for releasing more Israeli hostages from Gaza: an end of the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian enclave, and the release of more Palestinians from Israeli prisons. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we agree to this \u2013 our soldiers fell in vain. If we agree to this \u2013 we will not be able to guarantee the security of our citizens,\u201d Netanyahu said Sunday. <\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s comments comes amid a rift with the US, Israel\u2019s most important ally,\u00a0on what Gaza will look like once the conflict ends, and exposes the complex position Netanyahu is in. <\/p>\n
The Israeli prime minister is facing competing pressure from the international community to allow the creation of a viable Palestinian state and domestically to guarantee Israel\u2019s security, most notably from far-right members of his coalition. <\/p>\n
Adding to the pressure, he is also facing calls for early elections, with thousands taking to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday. Critics have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war to stay in power. War cabinet minister\u00a0Gadi Eisenkot\u00a0says he hopes that is not the case, but also says elections should happen within months. <\/p>\n
Biden administration officials have recently been engaged in discussions about a future demilitarized Palestinian state, an idea the US president finds \u201cintriguing,\u201d the source said. <\/p>\n
Following the phone call, their first in weeks,\u00a0Biden\u00a0told reporters he believed Netanyahu could ultimately be convinced of\u00a0some kind of\u00a0two-state solution. \u201cThere are a number of types of two-state solutions,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a number of countries that are members of the UN that are still \u2013 don\u2019t have their own military; a number of states that have limitations, and so I think there\u2019s ways in which this can work,\u201d\u00a0Biden\u00a0added. <\/p>\n
But the day after Biden spoke, the\u00a0Israeli prime minister\u2019s office said in a statement:\u00a0\u201cIn his conversation with President Biden, Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated his policy that after Hamas is destroyed Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty.\u201d <\/p>\n
Biden and Netanyahu remain publicly at odds over the question of what will happen to Gaza once\u00a0the Israel-Hamas war\u00a0concludes, despite intense American efforts over the past several months to engage officials in Israel and the wider region on a plan they hope can finally resolve the decades-long conflict. <\/p>\n
The two-state solution has been the goal of the international community for decades, dating back to the 1947 UN Partition Plan, and many nations say that it is the only way out of the conflict. <\/p>\n
It remains an open question how post-war Gaza will be governed but Netanyahu has had long-standing objections to a two-state solution. <\/p>\n
And while Netanyahu\u2019s\u00a0stance is\u00a0contentious\u00a0internationally, he faces pressure from more right-wing members of his cabinet who have caused outrage with their suggestions on what should happen to people living in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Far-right\u00a0Finance\u00a0Minister\u00a0Bezalel Smotrich has championed the idea of a Palestinian exodus from\u00a0Gaza.\u00a0He and\u00a0far-right\u00a0National Security\u00a0Minister\u00a0Itamar Ben Gvir sparked anger when advocating\u00a0for\u00a0the resettlement of <\/strong>Palestinians\u00a0outside the\u00a0Gaza\u00a0Strip. <\/p>\n\n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday rejected calls for Palestinian sovereignty following talks with US President Joe Biden about Gaza\u2019s future, suggesting Israel\u2019s security needs would be incompatible with Palestinian statehood. \u201cI will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan \u2013 and this is contrary to a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}