RAMALLAH // Palestinians have condemned comments by Israel’s prime minister that Jewish settlers should remain in the West Bank even if a Palestinian state is created.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks, made on Friday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was followed by a statement from his office accusing the Palestinians of not taking seriously the security concerns of Israeli citizens.
Unsurprisingly, Palestinian officials rejected the idea of the more than 500,000 settlers remaining in the Palestinian territories.
“No settler will be allowed to stay in the Palestinian state, not even a single one, because settlements are illegal and the presence of the settlers on the occupied lands is illegal,” said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator in the current round of peace talks with Israel.
Nabil Shaath, a senior official in the West Bank’s dominant Fatah faction, said the idea demonstrated that “Mr Netanyahu doesn’t really want to allow us any state at all”.
On Monday, Mr Netanyahu’s office said the Palestinian response demonstrated a lack of good faith in the current peace talks brokered by the United States.
Restarted last summer, the negotiations have reportedly foundered in part because of Israel’s refusal to stop constructing settler homes inside the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want these territories, along with the Gaza Strip, for future a Palestinian state.
The international community regards settlements in those areas as illegal and a major obstacle to creating a viable Palestinian state.
“Nothing shows the Palestinian Authority’s unwillingness to reach an accord with Israel than their extreme and reckless reaction to an unofficial report,” Mr Netanyahu’s office said. “An accord will only be reached when the Palestinians recognised the Jewish state and when the essential interests to the security of Israeli citizens are guaranteed.”
Still, the criticism of Mr Netanyahu’s suggestion was also withering among members of his right-wing coalition who reject returning to the Palestinians the lands that Israel captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Naftali Bennett, Israel’s pro-settler economy minister, went so far as to call Mr Netanyahu’s suggestion “ethnic insanity”.
However, it remains unclear exactly what Mr Netanyahu was referring to when he said in Davos that he “wouldn’t uproot a single Israeli” in the event of a deal with the Palestinians. He did not elaborate.
Nour Odeh, a former Palestinian Authority (PA) spokeswoman, said that Mr Netanyahu may want to preserve the status quo of the settlers living under Israeli law and security instead of Palestinian jurisdiction.
Ms Odeh said Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president, had not rejected the idea of some settlers staying on in a Palestinian state.
They referred to comments the Palestinian leader made in August in which he said that the “issue will be placed on the negotiating table and we’ll address it with an open mind”.
“The problem with this [idea] is that Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to sign an agreement that allows him and the settlement enterprise to continue, but under a different name,” Mrs Odeh said.
But writing in Israel’s +972 magazine yesterday, Noam Sheizaf, an editor at the online magazine, concluded that Mr Netanyahu’s primary aim was to thwart the peace talks and the creation of a Palestinian state.
He cited a number of new demands the Israeli premier has said are necessary for a peace deal: asking the Palestinians to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and keeping troops deep inside a Palestinian state for years after the signing of a peace agreement.
Both demands have previously been rejected by the Palestinians.
“In previous weeks Netanyahu has raised just about any possible idea that could make the notion of a Palestinian state meaningless,” Mr Sheizaf wrote.
hnaylor@thenational.ae
* Additional reporting by The Associated Press