Netanyahu Vows No Palestinian State If Re-Elected

“Anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state, anyone who is going to evacuate territories today, is simply giving a base for attacks to radical Islam against Israel,” said Netanyahu in remarks to the conservative online newspaper NRG.

And in an attack on the Zionist Union, headed by his Labor Party rival Isaac Herzog, the leader of the Likud party said that the left has been “sticking their head in the sand, time and time again” and has ignored this.

“Be we are realists and we understand” the situation, he declared.

The stance expressed on Monday by the premier, who in Tuesday’s elections is aspiring to a third consecutive term, contradicts the one he set forth in a 2009 speech at Bar Ilan University, where he publicly accepted – for the first time – the two-state solution.

Since December, Netanyahu on several occasions has expressed his opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state while instability continues in the Middle East, but this is the first time that he has publicly committed himself to ensuring that one does not come about while he heads the Israeli government.

According to the Web page of the daily Haaretz, Netanyahu’s comments in a right-wing media outlet owned by U.S. billionaire Sheldon Edelson are a “last-minute attempt” to steal voters from the Jewish Home party, which represents the West Bank settlers.

The leader of that party, Naftali Bennet, is pushing in his campaign for the annexation of the parts of the West Bank that are still under Israeli control and the creation of an autonomous Palestinian entity, something that – according to various surveys – has allowed his party to capture several former Likud parliamentary seats.