Speaking alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, the premier also reiterated his opposition to the Palestinian Authority taking control of Gaza after the war with Hamas ends, adding that “among friends it’s important not to foster illusions,” alluding to Washington’s desire for a “revamped” PA to take control of the coastal enclave.
Netanyahu described the Oslo Accords as “a fateful mistake” and said the results of the “little Palestinian state in Gaza” brought about by the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 demonstrated the danger of allowing Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank.
“I’m proud that I prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state because today everybody understands what that Palestine state could have been, now that we’ve seen the little Palestinian state in Gaza. Everyone understands what would have happened if we had capitulated to international pressures and enabled a state like that in Judea and Samaria, surrounding Jerusalem and on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.”
Criticism of Netanyahu’s comments was swift in coming, with Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer pointing out that Netanyahu had implemented interim agreements of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s; voted in favor of the disengagement from Gaza (before resigning from Ariel Sharon government’s ahead of its implementation); carried out the deal to free kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, in which Hamas’s current leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar was released; and came to an arrangement that allowed Qatari cash to flow to Hamas in Gaza during his tenure as prime minister. READ MORE