Israel minister: Palestinian state ‘would be a disaster for Israel’

Israeli minister and Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett reaffirmed his opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state yesterday, responding to remarks made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.

As reported by the Jerusalem Post, Bennett took to Twitter to declare that “as long as the Bayit Yehudi [Jewish Home] is in the government, there will be no Palestinian state. That would be a disaster for Israel”. He did, however, add that Trump “is a true friend of Israel”.

Bennett’s party colleague MK Bezalel Smotrich said it would “be very strange if he [Trump] repeated the mistakes of his predecessors” and “try to promote a solution based on the establishment of a hostile terrorist entity that would continue to strive to destroy the State of Israel”.

According to the Jerusalem Post, “Smotrich called on the Netanyahu to present alternative out-of-the-box ideas to the US that do not involve dividing the Land of Israel or ‘fostering national illusions’ among Arabs”.

Although Trump stated a preference for a two-state solution yesterday, in a subsequent press conference he returned to a theme he first expressed in February 2017, namely that the US would support whatever solution – one-state or two-states – that Israel and the Palestinians prefer.

MK: Israel to extend its sovereignty over all historic Palestine