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Backtracking, Netanyahu says he wants two-state solution Netanyahu steps back from full opposition to Palestinian state
(about 5 hours later)
Apparently backtracking on his promise this week to fully oppose Palestinian statehood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he could support the idea after changes in the region’s political and security landscape. JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backtracked Thursday from a clear campaign statement that as long as he was the leader of Israel there would be no independent Palestinian state.
“I don’t want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution. But for that, circumstances have to change,” Netanyahu told MSNBC in an interview two days after his Likud party pulled off an unexpected victory in Israel’s parliamentary elections. “I don’t want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution. But for that, circumstances have to change,” Netanyahu, who won reelection Tuesday, told MSNBC in an interview.
With polls showing his party behind just days before Tuesday’s balloting, Netanyahu reached out to right-wing voters with a pledge to oppose the so-called two-state solution with Palestinians as long as he was in power. Earlier this week, in the heat of the Israeli campaign, with pre-election polls suggesting that he might lose, Netanyahu made the sensational promise that he would not support the creation of a Palestinian state on his watch, an open reversal of his earlier stance supporting a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The formula has been the centerpiece of peace efforts led by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, and Netanyahu’s declaration deepened tensions with the White House. The head-spinning pivot did not convince White House officials, who suggested Thursday that Netanyahu’s maneuvers could prompt a shift in U.S. policy toward Israel, particularly in the United Nations, where the United States has been Israel’s strongest advocate and defender. The White House described its commitment to Israeli and Palestinian states existing side by side in peace as a “bedrock” principle of U.S. policy in the region.
[Winning the election is not the hardest test for Netanyahu’s political skills] [What now for U.S. Israel-ties?]
In the MSNBC interview, also scheduled to air later Thursday on “NBC Nightly News,” Netanyahu said he cannot back a Palestinian state has long as Palestinian leaders in Gaza maintain ties with the militant group Hamas. Israel and Hamas fought a 50-day war last summer. In a sign of the Obama administration’s extreme frustration, White House press secretary Josh Earnest denounced Netanyahu’s actions as “cynical, divisive election-day tactics” that are unworthy of the values that the United States and Israel share. “Words matter,” Earnest added.
Netanyahu also expressed worries that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank could open up footholds for Islamist groups such as the Islamic State. Netanyahu’s actions had “eroded” that foundation and will mean that the United States “needs to rethink our approach,” he said. “And that’s what we will do.”
“So we need the conditions of recognition of a Jewish state and real security in order to have a realistic two-state solution,” he said in the interview. Despite the strained relations, President Obama called Netanyahu to congratulate him on his victory, as well as to express concern about his election-eve rhetoric and to stress U.S. commitment to a “sovereign and viable” Palestinian state.
“And I was talking about what is achievable and what is not achievable. To make it achievable, then you have to have real negotiations with people who are committed to peace,” he added. “We are. It’s time that we saw the pressure on the Palestinians to show that they are committed, too.” The call, which also reaffirmed the importance of U.S.-Israel cooperation on matters of intelligence and security, reflected the delicate balancing act facing the White House as it weighs the need to support one of its closest allies while also demonstrating its growing frustration with Netanyahu.
Netanyahu claimed his campaign pledge was not a new stance but reflected a previous declaration calling for Palestinians to clear the way for two-state talks. Obama had declined to meet with Netanyahu this month when he was in Washington to deliver a speech to Congress that raised concerns about the administration’s negotiations with Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program. The speech represented yet another sore spot in the two leaders’ strained relationship.
“I haven’t changed my policy. I never retracted my speech in Bar-Ilan University six years ago calling for a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state,” the prime minister said. [White House warns Netanyahu on anti-Arab rhetoric in Israeli elections]
Netanyahu also signaled a willingness to try to close rifts with the Obama administration, which was angered by a Republican-organized invitation for Netanyahu to speak earlier this month before a joint meeting of Congress. In the address, Netanyahu issued withering criticism of ongoing talks aimed at securing a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program. One option that the White House is considering is acceding to the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution that outlines the broad parameters of a two-state solution and involves significant sacrifice on the part of the Israelis and the Palestinians. Such a resolution would “set down a marker for both societies and the future,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security who served as chief of staff to the special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the Obama administration.
“By coming to the U.S., I didn’t mean any disrespect or any attempt at partisanship,” Netanyahu said. “I was merely speaking . . . of something that I viewed would endanger the survival of Israel. I felt my obligation to speak up there.” The administration has previously opposed such efforts to impose a solution on the conflict from the outside. But the White House could argue that such a measure, which would probably be drafted by European allies, would help shield Israel from more extreme punitive measures, such as sanctions or war crimes charges in the International Criminal Court, which the Palestinian Authority has vowed to pursue after it joins in April.
He said the United States has “no greater ally” than Israel despite disagreements over negotiations with Iran. The move would also be seen widely as an effort on the part of the White House to punish Israel’s prime minister. “The president has to decide if this is worth it,” Goldenberg said. “This is a huge political lift for the White House.” Such a move would probably come this spring or summer to shield Democratic presidential candidates from the political fallout.
“We’ll work together,” he said. “We have to. We have our differences on Iran.” The White House said Thursday that no decisions had been made on whether or how the United States should shift its approach to Israel.
The White House said Thursday that it was evaluating the way forward following Netanyahu’s latest comments. After winning a resounding victory Tuesday to a fourth term as prime minister, Netanyahu went on U.S. TV news shows — and not Israeli programs — on Thursday to walk back his statements.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that Netanyahu, in his election day remarks, clearly backed away from his previous commitment to a two-state solution. [Netanyahu sweeps to victory in Israeli election]
Netanyahu’s concern for 2016 Netanyahu, who only days earlier suggested that any evacuation of the occupied territories would be akin to ceding ground to “radical Islam,” was suddenly insisting that he hadn’t changed his policy.
How Israel reacted to Netanyahu’s speech to Congress As proof, the prime minister cited a speech he gave at Bar-Ilan University in 2009 in which he famously said he supported a two-state solution, as long as Israel’s security was guaranteed and the newly created Palestinian nation was demilitarized.
Over the past six years, whenever it seemed as if Netanyahu was fighting against a two-state solution, his aides referred reporters to his Bar-Ilan speech.
Netanyahu returned to that speech in an interview with Fox News on Thursday. “I didn’t retract any of the things I said in my speech six years ago,” he said.
Instead, he blamed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for his reluctance to continue talks. “He’s made a pact with the Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas, that calls for our destruction,” the prime minister said, referring to the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.
He added that “conditions in the Middle East have changed to the point where any territory we withdraw from is immediately taken up by Iranian-backed terrorists or by the [Islamic State].”
Although the Islamic State has no presence in Israel, the West Bank or Gaza, it does operate in neighboring Syria. It’s “a dozen miles away from us,” Netanyahu said. “It’s thousands of miles away from you.”
Palestinian leaders scoffed at what they called Netanyahu’s disingenuous attempt to recast his remarks while blaming others.
Abbas said that Netanyahu’s words “are proof, if correct, that there is no seriousness in the Israeli government about a political solution,” according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
Saeb Erekat, who spent nine months last year as the top Palestinian negotiator in talks led by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, said, “What Netanyahu said wasn’t electioneering. It was him.”
“This new Israeli government is determined to bury a two-state solution,” Erekat said, adding that there is “a big difference between tough negotiator and non-negotiator” and that all Netanyahu and his team have brought to talks is “make-believe, illusions, plays.”
Jaffe reported from Washington.