From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 19, 2024
Netanyahu boasts of thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian state ‘for decades’
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is introducing this evening in the Knesset legislation that would match a cabinet decision made yesterday to reject “international diktats” seeking to push Palestinian statehood — boasting of his decades of thwarting any such move.
In a video statement, Netanyahu says that Israel is facing new pressures in recent days, in particular “an attempt to force upon us the unilateral establishment of a Palestinian state which will endanger the existence of the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu says he is certain that the Knesset legislation will receive wide support after it passed unanimously in the cabinet, “and it will show the world that there is wide agreement in Israel against the international efforts to force on us a Palestinian state.”
The prime minister adds that “everyone knows that I am the one who for decades blocked the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger our existence.”
His position, he says, only strengthened following Hamas’s October 7 massacre, and Netanyahu says that “no matter what, Israel will maintain full security control over all territory west on the Jordan River,” including both Gaza and the West Bank.
The Times of Israel Community.