Israel ambassador to UK says ‘absolutely no’ to two-state solution, Palestine statehood

Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom has rejected the idea of an independent Palestinian State and the two-state solution, as a whole, in comments which further shed light on the Occupation’s intentions to avert Palestinian statehood.

In an interview with Sky News yesterday, Israeli ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely, stated that “I think it’s about time for the world to realise the Oslo paradigm failed on October 7 and we need to build a new one”. When asked if that new paradigm would include an independent State for Palestinians, she replied “absolutely no”.

Calling the two-state solution “a formula that never worked, that created this radical people on the other side”, Hotovely claimed that “the reason the Oslo accords failed was because the Palestinians never wanted to have a State next to Israel, they want to have a State from the river to the sea”.

BREAKING: Israeli ambassador @TzipiHotovely rejects the idea of a two-state solution

"The answer is absolutely no", she says.https://t.co/cjkJJFipKp

📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/9z0fMWSSui

— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 13, 2023

The ambassador’s comments come at a time when the two-state solution has come under intense scrutiny in recent years, primarily due to the fact that Israel has actively allowed the  construction and establishment of thousands of illegal settlements – and the immigration of tens of thousands of illegal settlers – throughout the three decades since the 1993 Oslo Accords, causing a major obstacle and impracticality to the territorial integrity of a future Palestinian State in the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The issue has only gained further attention amid the recent and ongoing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, with officials in the Israeli government now openly stating their opposition to the idea of a two-state solution. Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, told lawmakers in his party last month that only he can “prevent a Palestinian State” after the war in Gaza, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called the enablement of the two-state solution “suicide”.

Most recently, Israel’s Communications Minister, Shlomo Karhi, stated that “There will be no Palestinian State here. We will never allow another state to be established between the Jordan and the sea. We will never go back to Oslo.” He also claimed that a “Palestinian State would endanger them [Israelis]”.

Their comments are not only in direct opposition to the official stance of most Western nations – especially Britain and the United States – but also contradict President Joe Biden’s recent remarks that Netanyahu and his government “cannot say there’s no Palestinian State at all in the future. And that’s going to be the hard part”.

For many Palestinians, as well as critics of Israel and its crimes against humanity, Hotovely’s and other Israeli officials’ open rejection of the two-state solution only reveals the long-held policy of Tel Aviv and its occupation of Palestinian Territories: to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, while feigning its agreement to the idea to the international community.

READ: The Oslo Accords are the war Israel won without fighting