Netanyahu Stands behind 'Palestinian State' Vision

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has affirmed to Channel 2 that as elections approach, he stands behind the principles he outlined in his speech at Bar Ilan University in 2009. Channel 2's Knesset reporter, Amit Segal, did not say Monday evening whether the information came directly from Netanyahu, but from the way in which he reported the news, it was clear that it had been approved by the Prime Minister.

This means that Netanyahu supports the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state, conditional upon "a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people," and with Jerusalem remaining the united capital of Israel.

Earlier on Monday, Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said that Netanyahu's Bar Ilan speech was made for "tactical" reasons only and did not reflect Likud's true platform.  She claimed that the speech was meant "to expose Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas's true positions to the world."

"In the next term, he will uproot communities and no one will be able to say that he did not give advance notice," a senior nationalist political source told Arutz Sheva following the Channel 2 report. "He has announced his intentions, and voting for him means giving the public's stamp of approval to troubling diplomatic moves," the source added.

Senior Likud members recently called for the addition of a statement to the Likud platform that would renounce the idea of a Palestinian state. The platform currently does not directly address the issue.

Critics of the "Palestinian state" idea have expressed concern that "in any “West Bank” Palestinian “Demilitarized” state, Hamas will smuggle in thousands of chemical-warheaded Katyushas into the “Demilitarized” West Bank which they will launch, en masse, into the Tel Aviv."  AS7