Regional Affairs Minister Tzachi Hanegbi says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still committed to the two-state solution, as outlined in his 2009 Bar-Ilan University speech.
“It did not change since then. It’s still [the] valid policy of the prime minister of Israel and therefore the government of Israel,” Hanegbi tells Jewish American leaders in the Knesset, referring to Netanyahu’s address. “The principles of the Bar-Ilan speech became more relevant today than the time they were given. The Middle East is not the Middle East of 2009.”
The top Netanyahu confidant, who is set to become communications minister on Tuesday, says a binational state is “out of the question.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, speaks with MK Tzachi Hanegbi during a Likud party meeting in the Knesset on February 8, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
“One state will never happen. No Israeli leader will allow Israel to become a potentially Arab state in the future,” he says. No Israeli leader will “shatter the Jewish dream, the ZIonist dream.”
“This is out of the question,” he adds.
Hanegbi also praises Trump’s stance on the Iran nuclear deal, remarking that “we do see this agreement as jeopardizing Israel’s existence” if implemented without any changes.
When the deal expires there will be an “empire with vicious ambitions that the world recognizes its nuclear capabilities and allows it to produce and enrich uranium without limitations,” he said. Iran will then have “100 nuclear bombs really in no time,” says Hanegbi.
Israel is happy Trump “shares this view,” he says.
“This is a fight that we are not going to give up.”
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From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 20, 2017
