Sa’ar said that the solution needs to be an autonomous Palestinian entity linked together in a federation with Jordan. “Between the Jordan River and the (Mediterranean) Sea there cannot be another state,” he said.
Attacking PM from the right, challenger blames Netanyahu’s ‘endless concessions’ for helping perpetuate the idea that a Palestinian state is the only way to achieve a peace deal
By TOI STAFF
Likud MK Gideon Sa’ar speaks at a conference at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, December 15, 2019. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Gideon Sa’ar, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sole challenger in the upcoming Likud party leadership race, said Sunday that a two-state solution with the Palestinians is an “illusion,” and attacked the premier for giving the notion credibility over the last decade.
“Throughout the world they say that a two-state solution remains the path to an agreement,” Sa’ar said, speaking at a conference.”I have to say to you, this is not a position that helps anyone. Two-states in an illusion.”
Sa’ar said this had been shown through decades of negotiations based around two-states that had failed to bring peace. He also blamed the Palestinians for “never being able to agree to a compromise, despite very generous offers.”
Sa’ar castigated Netanyahu for perpetuating the idea that two-states was the only solution, accusing him of making “endless concessions” to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during the last decade, including settlement building freezes in the West Bank.
He also referred to Netanyahu’s famous speech at Bar-Ilan University in 2009, in which the prime minister expressed support for the creation of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu has since said conditions for statehood no longer exist in the current reality in the Middle East.
Sa’ar said that the solution needs to be an autonomous Palestinian entity linked together in a federation with Jordan. “Between the Jordan River and the (Mediterranean) Sea there cannot be another state,” he said.
Sa’ar appeared to be trying to outflank Netanyahu from the right ahead of the Likud party leadership vote, set for December 26. However, Netanyahu has in recent years also moved away from tacit support for a two-state solution and has, over the last few months, been promising to annex the Jordan Valley in the West Bank if reelected.
Likud MK Sharren Haskel on Sunday said she would back Sa’ar, becoming the fourth lawmaker to publicly endorse him. Most Likud MKs have announced support for Netanyahu, with a few notable lawmakers keeping mum. Despite the defections, Netanyahu is expected to defeat Sa’ar handily.
The vote marks the first real challenge to Netanyahu’s leadership of the party in 14 years. He and Sa’ar are the only contenders who have announced they will run in the primary.
Sa’ar argues that Netanyahu is divisive and has proved he cannot put together a coalition, after failing to muster a governing majority following two national elections in April and September. Israel will go to polls again on March 2.
Sa’ar has expressed his opposition to a two-state solution in the past. Earlier this year he was one of a group of right-wing lawmakers who sent a letter to US lawmakers warning that calls for a two-state solution are “far more dangerous to Israel” than efforts to boycott the Jewish state, and urging them to refrain from such appeals in the future.
“We believe (the proposed resolution) contains a grave error because it expresses, among other things, support for a so-called ‘Two-State Solution,’ meaning the establishment of a ‘Palestinian state’ in the heart of tiny Israel… We would like to make our position clear that the establishment of a Palestinian state would be far more dangerous to Israel than BDS,” they wrote.
The letter was sent to the offices of the four congressmen who co-sponsored a resolution that condemned BDS but also called for a two-state solution — Brad Schneider, Lee Zeldin, Jerry Nadler and Ann Wagner. It was written and sent at the initiative of Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, the Land of Israel caucus in the Knesset and the National Conference of Likud, an informal group of hawks within the ruling party.
Creating a Palestinian state in the region would “severely damage” both Israel’s and America’s national security, the Israeli legislators wrote.
In recent years the Trump administration has moved away from its support for a two-state solution.
Last month US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US was softening its position on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Pompeo repudiated a 1978 State Department legal opinion that held that civilian settlements in the occupied territories are “inconsistent with international law.”
US moves that have weakened Palestinian efforts to achieve statehood have included President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the moving of the US embassy to that city and the closure of the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington. These moves have been widely, though not universally, welcomed in Israel.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and his point man for the Middle East peace process, has said that the administration’s as-yet-unreleased peace plan would avoid speaking about the two-state solution.
“I realize that means different things to different people,” he said earlier this year. “If you say ‘two states’ to the Israelis it means one thing, and if you say ‘two states’ to the Palestinians it means another thing. So we said, ‘let’s just not say it.’ Let’s just work on the details of what this means.”
@ sabasarge:
Not even up to the abysmally low standard of “faint praise”. Blue and White have. That Glick had no kop for politics was evident frm even before the beginning of his thankfully brief seat warming career….. he was a naif….and didn’t need to be sidelined”…from what we might ask…from another shooting??…..because that’s all he knew about.
Did Netanyahu assault your wife …or something…?
@ Edgar G.:
Me, too.
If the right wing block is not big enough after the next elections, the Shas & UTJ will join a coalition with the Likud if Bibi is the head of the Likud.
So Saar is correct if he does not win the primary then the Likud will likely up end sitting in the opposition. Saar could lead the Likud to be part of a coalition or even lead it.
@ Edgar G.:
What has he (Glick) done you ask? You’re right, almost nothing…..but let’s not forget how Bibi did his best over the years to marginalize him, and he succeeded.
I also will never forget how Bibi waited until it was meaningless to resign from Sharon’s government over the disengagement. Of course he made a big deal about resigning, but as mentioned it was a completely empty gesture. He was a snake then and he’s a snake now. I’m not sure what that says about our politics these days considering I still think, considering the alternatives, that he’s the one best suited to lead the country.
@ Felix Quigley:
I sent you a fairly lengthy response Felix, applauding your very descriptive prose, that I could nearly visualise. Also mentioned that I knew a Jewish religious family who lived in Derry, who later moved to Manchester. That I was surprised that a Jewish family would be in Derry. Their name was Frieslander, and I was very friendly with both boys for several years. There was more….
THIS POST HAS DISAPPEARED. Ted will probably find it during his regular inspection of the “trash”, or wherever missing posts find themselves.
@ Bear Klein:
Yes, I saw that nearly 1,000 people were there, (although i didn’t know that Haskel was a LIKUD member).,,,,,not bad out of a population 5-6 million voters…
I wouldn’t care to depend much on what Yehuda Glick thinks. Apart from the fame he deservedly got from recovering from such life threatening wounds, what has he done….??
Avi Dichter, in today’s Arutz 7… SAID IT ALL…….!!
@ Sebastien Zorn:
You know Sebastien, we all can post as accurate and informative info as we like, but it never has any effect on “those who know”..It seems that we are knocking our heads against a wall.
I STILL can’t understand how, and why, so many Israelis, utterly stupid as I know them to be, can vote for such a cobbled together conglomeration as this rattle-trap Blue and White 1910 automobile (when baling wire was free with each model) … especially when they have absolutely NO competent politicians, or, indeed competent military people as candidates, and with a failed general of NO achievements-except failure- and NO political experience, even as a dog catcher, touted for the PM position.
I’m completely baffled, Loyalty and (seachal) seem lost attributes in Israel. It makes me feel ashamed.
See Video http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/273316
@ Edgar G.:
I completely agree.
Interesting Nir Barkat has stated that right now Bibi is the best leader for the Likud and Israel. So if Saar loses in the primary versus Bibi (he is a long shot) and Bibi does retire in the near future which is likely sometime after the next elections.
Barkat will have the goodwill (likely) of the many Likudnik loyalists to the Prime Minister plus he has many who like him. So Barkat has cleverly positioned himself to be the future Likud leader.
The “Shiloh Musings” blog has a highly relevant comment on the Saar-Netanyahu contest:
Edgar
Saar reminds me of those snot nosed little urchins in my school of St Columbs College Derry who would suck up to teacher just at the moment you were in greatest danger. What kind of protoplasm produces such things as a “Saar”, and even worse those who cannot see what he is doing. And who proceed as if he were not doing it. Apart from that Edgar has said it all, well not quite all because he never met or understood Trotskyism, that body of experience being totally absent from the Ireland he knew, but still pretty dammed good.
@ Edgar G.:
Because there was no “edit” for this post, , I was unable to insert, near the beginning of the above …..;
****It seems obvious that Netanyahu, when he came to power, could immediately see that the Arabs were there,, (brought by the leftist defeatists, to satisfy their pusillanimous mental conditions, only to terrorise and devastate the country, foreseen by many clear-sighted people) with no immediate solution as to how to remove them, so internally, he temporarily accepted the situation, which, in line with his developing statesmanlike perception, could be managed. And so he did -and so they have been.
Today,and for some years past, always there, but now more OPENLY building up, is an increasingly stronger mainstream movement to remove these adjacent enemies,from sojourning in our Land, Not hard to envision. **** . ,
You’re all missing the point. Sa’ar is shortsightedly going after what he perceives as Netanyahu’s encouragement of the |2 State Solution”, by concessions. What have those concessions cost us……virtually nothing. What have they saved us..From a wall-to-wall intolerant International Community which would inflict REAL harm, permanent and perpetual damage to Israel, not the flea bites of today, which are irritating, but eased by scratching. There would have been NO US Embassy in Jerusalem, and NO stream of hitherto non-committal or openly hostile countries to establish relations with Israel, as there is today. All this through Netanyahu’s planning, zig-zagging, coaxing, agreeing, but not implementing, dodging an ducking, always progressing from “worse-to-bad” but upwards.. Remember he’s a chess player.
How could this be, a Jewish State, regarded as a powerhouse, a leading world Power… just less than a lifetime removed from the many centuries misery of the Ghettos and the catastrophe of the Holocaust………??
Netanyahu, and the encouragement and inspiration he’s given to the people. That’s how. ….!!!.
He has NO intention of allowing a “Palestinian” State and his enemies know this very well. He is a strong Zionist, as his whole history has shown. But craven ummenschen shed themselves from his coat tails when they perceive he is weakening.
This is where the Great Sa’ar comes in….trum[ets…drum rolls, cymbals..
Gil Hoffman
@Gil_Hoffman —Israel’s only Canadian-born MK, @SharrenHaskel
, just endorsed @gidonsaar
for leader of Likud. He is now up to 6 MKs out of 32.
Also endorsing Saar is Lior Akerman
Lior Akerman is a former brigadier-general who served as a division head in the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).
Actually, the best plan you could come up with would be to assist the Palestiians to remove themselves to an Arab country of their choice! If compensation is offered to the Palestinians many of them would be prepared to leave. But it would be necessary to ensure that the Palestinians who would be leaving would be those who have great hatred for Jews and the desire to destoy us.
Sa’ar. needs word corrections. Remove the p and w b words from all vocabulary. By using them you admit they are genuine and not made up words.