Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stated Sunday that he totally rejects that idea of establishing a Palestinian state, and spoke of a “sort of autonomy for the Palestinians”. He also said that Israel will continue to build settlements in the occupied West Bank, and in occupied East Jerusalem.“I do not want the Palestinians to become Israeli citizens”, Netanyahu said, “I don’t want to control them either”.
In a Televised interview with the Walla Israeli News, Netanyahu said that Israel will have to reach a sort of an understanding “granting the Palestinians some sort of a disarmed authority”.
He strongly rejected any sort of Palestinian “entity” in this current stage, and said that “Israel needs to know what it can do; Abu Mazin (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) is hugging Hamas, the same group that calls for our annihilation”, according to Netanyahu.
The Arabs48 news website reported that Netanyahu also said that Israeli leftist parties are “shedding a blind eye on what is happening”, adding that “leftist parties just want an agreement regardless of the consequences”.
“This is the same way we handed Gaza to the Palestinians”, Netanyahu said while referring to the Gaza Disengagement Plan conducted by former Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, of Netanyahu’s Likud party,
“In no time, Hamas was able to control Gaza, and obtained dozens of thousands of Iranian missiles”, he claimed.
As for Israel’s illegal settlement construction and expansion activities, Netanyahu said that a government under his command will never evict any settlement.
“I never removed a single settlement, and I don’t intend to remove any”, he added, “We removed the settlers from Gaza, and look what happened; I will never do such a thing”.
The Israeli Prime Minister further stated that Israel will not evict settlements under any peace agreement with the Palestinians, and added that the settlement blocs of Gush Ezion, Ariel and Maale Adumim will always be part of Israel.
He also said that his government does not only build within the boundaries of the existing settlements in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, but wherever it can.
As for smaller settlements not located within settlement blocs, Netanyahu said that this issue will be determined in negotiations, but also said that he will never evict any settlement as long as he is leading Israel.
Responding to a question about Iran, Netanyahu said that he is doing whatever he can “to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear power”, and even vowed that as long as he is the Prime Minister, Iran will never be able to become a nuclear power.
He also said that his polices also include other important files, such as what we called “Syrian chemical weapons”, missiles obtained by the Hezbollah party in Lebanon, in addition to interior issues such as reducing housing costs.
