Two Israeli ministers responded to US President Joe Biden’s statements in which he called for changing the extremist Israeli government, “in order to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” and said, “Tel Aviv will never allow the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Earlier Tuesday, Biden said that Israel had begun to lose the support of the international community with its indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip, and that its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not be able in the future to say “no” to a Palestinian state, calling on him to change his government.
In the first official comment in response to Biden’s statements, Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karai said in a post on his account on the “X” platform, “We respect and cherish the President of the United States, Joe Biden, who did his best during the most difficult period that the State of Israel went through. This is true friendship.”
He went on to add, “But we live here, and this is our country. The historical legacy of our ancestors. There will be no Palestinian state here. We will never allow the establishment of another state between the Jordan River and the sea. We will never return to Oslo,” referring to the agreement signed in 1993 between Israel and Palestine under the auspices of American.
The two-state solution
Karai continued, “In the words of President Biden, the security of the Jewish people is at stake here. Absolutely yes. The Palestinian state will expose it to danger.”
For his part, Israeli Cabinet Minister Gideon Sa’ar said, commenting on Biden’s statement about the necessity of changing the Israeli emergency government that was formed after the war, “This was the only possible government.”
He added in statements reported by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, “Dissolving the government will encourage Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.”
He referred to the day after the war, saying, “We will not agree to a Palestinian state of terror, neither in the West Bank nor in Gaza. We will not agree to give up security responsibility there, and we will not agree to harming the settlements in the West Bank.”
Loss of international support
Biden had warned that Israel was about to lose global support for its war against Hamas due to its “indiscriminate” bombing of the Gaza Strip, calling on the Israeli Prime Minister to make a change in his far-right government.
He stressed that the current Israeli government is “the most extreme government in the history of Israel and does not want a two-state solution.”
In his harshest criticism of Netanyahu since the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7, Biden said during an election event in Washington that the Israeli prime minister should “change” his position on the two-state solution.
Biden indicated during a fundraising event for his election campaign that Israel had begun to lose the support of the international community, and said, “They are beginning to lose this support,” noting that the safety of the Jewish people is literally at stake.
Biden is scheduled to meet tomorrow, Wednesday, at the White House with family members of Americans (who also hold Israeli citizenship) detained in Gaza.
In turn, Netanyahu acknowledged that there was a “disagreement” with Biden regarding the way the Gaza Strip should be governed after the end of the current war.
