Bennett to US envoy: No chance of peace deal under Netanyahu

Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett met with US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro on Wednesday and reportedly told him that the Americans shouldn’t expect an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal under a future Netanyahu administration.

According to a report on Channel 10 news, Shapiro invited Bennett to a closed-door meeting in advance of next week’s elections, in which Jewish Home is projected to win at least double-digit seats in the Knesset.

“There is no chance that the projected Netanyahu government will go for any sort of agreement with the Palestinians,” Channel 10 quoted the right wing leader saying.

The station reported a day earlier that the White House was concerned about recent pre-election polls that indicated growing support for Jewish Home and that, should it hold a large stake in the coming government, it could hold the Netanyahu administration captive to its interests and those of the settler movement.

Bennett’s reported statement came a day after American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that US President Barack Obama is convinced that Netanyahu is “uninterested in making anything more than the slightest conciliatory gesture toward Palestinian moderates” and is “captive to the settler lobby,” the primary constituents of Bennett’s party.

The Jewish Home party advocates the annexation of Area C of the West Bank, the 60% portion currently under full Israeli administration, and disavows a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.