(Jerusalem) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday evening rejected any international recognition of a Palestinian state outside the framework of a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, saying that such an initiative “would offer a huge reward to terrorism” .
Two influential far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, responsible respectively for National Security and Finance, already rejected Thursday in similar terms a plan mentioned by the American daily Washington Post.
The newspaper reports that the United States, Israel’s main ally, and several Arab countries close to Washington are working on a comprehensive plan intended to establish a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace after the end of the war between Israel and Hamas.
“Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition, following the massacre of October 7, would offer a huge reward for unprecedented terrorism and would prevent any future peace agreement,” Mr. Netanyahu wrote in Hebrew on his X account, ex-Twitter.
“Israel categorically rejects international dictates regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians,” he added, reaffirming that a peace agreement could only result from “direct negotiations without preconditions.”
The implementation of the plan mentioned by the Washington Post would begin with a ceasefire “with an expected duration of at least six weeks,” said the American daily, citing American and Arab officials who hope for an agreement before March 10, the start date of Ramadan.
It would notably include a pause in the fighting, the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attacks in Israel and held since in Gaza, and a timetable for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
“We will never agree to such a plan, which actually says that the Palestinians deserve recompense for the terrible massacre they have committed,” Mr. Smotrich wrote on the social network existential threat to the State of Israel.