Bibi Rejects Harsh U.S. Criticism in Surprise Saban Forum Speech
Palestian uprising: protest in Gaza. Image by Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and rejected U.S. warnings that Israel was devolving toward a single state.
The “root cause of the problem,” Netanyahu said in a video address Sunday to the annual Saban Forum, is that “the Palestinians have not yet been willing to cross that conceptual bridge, the emotional bridge of giving up the dream of not a state next to Israel, but of a state instead of Israel.”
Netanyahu’s appearance at the annual convention of U.S. and Israeli leaders, convened in Washington, D.C., by the Brookings Institution and sponsored by Israeli-American entertainment mogul Haim Saban, was a last-minute addition. It came after a scorching speech to the forum the previous evening by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warning that Israel’s settlement policies were leading toward a one-state outcome.
Netanyahu denied that Israel was headed toward incorporating the West Bank Palestinian population.
“The only workable solution is not a unitary state but a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state,” he said.Netanyahu rebuts U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s warning about devolving to a one-state outcome.
Palestinians, after the launch of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, at times have expressed recognition of Israel’s Jewish character. However, as relations deteriorated in the 2000s and Israeli leaders demanded a reiteration, Palestinian leaders have resisted reasserting recognition of Israel as Jewish.
Netanyahu likened claims that the settlements were hindering peace to the notion once prevalent in some circles that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the core of the broader Middle East conflict. The earlier idea of blaming Israel for regional turmoil was now seen as “childish and irrelevant,” he said.
“The same will happen with the core of the conflict being of the settlements,” he said. “They are an issue to be resolved, but not the core of the conflict.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
