Netanyahu: Government Has Agreed That the Establishment of a Palestinian State Will Not Be Dictated to Us

By Aryeh Stern

​In the Knesset on Monday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu delivered a statement to the plenum: “For the past five months we have been conducting an unprecedented diplomatic campaign that has enabled the IDF soldiers and the state to wage the war without disruption and without interruption. This cannot be taken for granted. Today there are pressures that we are fending off. These pressures are designed to achieve one thing — to stop the war before we achieve all its goals. Recently we have heard pressures of a new kind — talk about a unilateral international dictate for Israel, intended to force upon it the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“I have to tell you that if this was not a clear danger before Oct. 7, then afterwards, a huge public in Israel understands that this must not happen. Yesterday in the Cabinet meeting, there was wall-to-wall, unanimous consensus that the establishment of a Palestinian state will not be dictated to us — certainly not after the Oct. 7 massacre or in general. The draft resolution was intended to make it clear to the world, to our friends and our enemies, that we will not yield to diktats that will endanger our existence.

“The wording of the draft resolution was as follows: ‘Israel utterly rejects international diktats regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. A settlement, if it is to be reached, will come about solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions. Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre would be a massive and unprecedented reward to terrorism and would prevent any future peace settlement,'” said Netanyahu.​