Rebuffing Biden, cabinet rejects unilateral Palestinian state as ‘reward for terrorism’
Approved even by centrist ministers, statement rejects ‘international diktats’ pushing two states; minister Sa’ar compares reported US-Arab proposal to appeasement of Nazis in 1938
Israel’s cabinet on Sunday unanimously approved a declaration rejecting “international diktats” seeking to push Palestinian statehood, in the wake of reports that the US and several Arab partners were preparing a detailed plan for a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians that includes a “firm timeline” for a Palestinian state.
“Israel utterly rejects international diktats regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians,” the cabinet decision read. “A settlement, if it is to be reached, will come about solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions.
“Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state,” the motion added. “Such recognition in the wake of the October 7th massacre would be a massive and unprecedented reward to terrorism and would foil any future peace settlement.”
In response, a US State Department spokesperson told The Times of Israel that “the best way to achieve an enduring end to the crisis in Gaza that provides lasting peace and security, for Israelis and Palestinian’s alike, is our strong commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state.
“As such, the United States continues to support the two-state solution and to oppose policies that endanger its viability or contradict our mutual interests and values.”
Speaking Sunday night at a Jerusalem conference of US Jewish leaders, US Ambassador Jack Lew sought to downplay talk that the US could recognize a Palestinian state unilaterally.
“We have never said there should be a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state,” says Lew. Instead, he called for an “over-the-horizon process that includes a vision for a demilitarized Palestinian state.
“Now is a moment in time when there is a real possibility that by engaging in normalization and negotiations with Saudi Arabia” along with reforms in the Palestinian Authority, “there can be a demilitarized Palestinian state. But Israel will have to make that choice,” Lew said.
The Israeli cabinet statement echoed comments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference on Saturday evening in response to a Washington Post report on the matter.
Members of Netanyahu’s party and ministers on the right flank of his coalition publicly blasted the report last week, with one Likud minister calling for Israel to threaten in response to cancel the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority. But Sunday’s statement was also approved by the centrist members of the emergency government, including ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot.
The Washington Post reported that the timing for announcing the blueprint was largely dependent on Israel and Hamas being able to reach a deal pausing the fighting in Gaza. The ongoing war was sparked by the terror group’s October 7 massacre, which saw thousands of terrorists break through the border, kill some 1,200 people and kidnap over 250 others, mostly civilians, amid acts of brutality including sexual assault.
The proposed plan includes moves that Israel has previously refused, including the evacuation of many West Bank settlements and the establishment of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. It would also see a combined security apparatus and government for the West Bank and Gaza.
Speaking after the unanimous cabinet vote, Gantz said that while Israel recognizes that victory in the war will come through cooperation with American and other international actors, it also rejects “one-sided actions.”
“When we say ‘Together we’ll win’ — we mean also together with our American partners — Republicans and Democrats alike,” Gantz told a gathering of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. “This victory goes hand in hand with our will to expand the circle of peace and form a united regional axis facing Iran. For that reason, the normalization process with Saudi Arabia is an important endeavor we must pursue — and I am personally working towards it.”
After the October 7 massacres, he said, “the pathway to regional stability and peace is not through one-sided actions like recognition of a Palestinian state. It is through facilitating long-term processes that will consolidate a regional architecture facing the Iranian axis of terror, and by advancing international arrangements that will improve the lives of people throughout the region and promote stability and peace.”
Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a member of Gantz’s National Unity party, was quoted by the Ynet news site as saying that the reported US proposal to place a “firm timeline” on the creation of a Palestinian state “would be like the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia in 1938,” referring to the 1938 Munich Agreement and Europe’s failed strategy of appeasing the Nazis in a bid to avoid conflict.
“The claims that a Palestinian state will bring us security is the greatest absurdity of all,” said Sa’ar, a longtime opponent of Palestinian statehood who is further to the right than Gantz.
Kan news reported that the unanimous statement was a last-minute addition to the cabinet meeting agenda.
Energy Minister Eli Cohen of Likud, who until last month served as foreign minister, told Army Radio that normalization with Saudi Arabia or any other country was not worth the security risk of allowing the Palestinians to have a state of their own.
“If the price of expanding peace agreements is a Palestinian state, then I’ll give up on the peace agreements,” he said.
Saudi officials have publicly acknowledged their willingness to normalize relations with Israel, even after October 7, but they have stressed — as has the US — that no deal can be reached until there is a ceasefire in Gaza and that it must include the creation of an irreversible pathway toward a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu has in the past spoken out against the creation of a Palestinian state and others have also pushed back against comments from Washington and elsewhere suggesting that talks on ending fighting in Gaza sparked by Hamas’s brutal rampage through southern Israel on October 7 be used to jumpstart long-moribund efforts to reach a two-state solution.
While some international actors believe the violence only underlines the need for a peace deal, Israeli leaders argue the attack highlighted the extreme danger of an autonomous Palestinian entity near its population centers. And amid soaring support for Hamas among Palestinians in the wake of the atrocities, there appears to be little appetite in the Israeli public for peace efforts.
Sam Sokol and Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
