Bennett rejects Trump plan for Palestinian state

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday rejected US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, saying Israel should never recognize a Palestinian state. He called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex all Israeli settlements in the West Bank immediately.

Bennett, head of the rightwing, religious Yamina party, said he and his party would not agree to transfer “a centimeter” of land to “the Arabs.”

Speaking following the unveiling of the Trump plan, Bennett said the country was standing before a once- in- a- lifetime opportunity to “determine the territory of our country.

“In the coming days a government resolution must be brought to the cabinet to apply Israeli sovereignty to all the territories of the settlements,” Bennett added.

“We cannot miss this opportunity, we cannot delay till after the elections, because by then it will already not happen,” he said.

Bennett said if Netanyahu takes this “full and courageous step,” then Yamina would give him its full backing, adding: “The Land of Israel is more important than elections.”

“We will not allow the government of Israel to recognize a Palestinian state in any situation,” he said.

Labor- Gesher- Meretz leader Amir Peretz said there still must be negotiations with the Palestinians to bring about two states for two peoples.

Joint List faction chairman Ahmad Tibi called the plan “a dangerous wedding without a bride.” He said Trump was “a president in the process of being toppled.”

Left- wing organizations also blasted the plan.

“What the Palestinians are being offered is not rights or a state but permanent apartheid,” B’Tselem executive director Hagai El- Ad said. “No marketing or packaging can erase the shame or blur the facts.”

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman said he welcomed that the Trump plan included a long- held aspect of his party’s own platform, the population transfer of Israeli Arab towns in northeast Israel to the putative Palestinian state.

Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the National Union, said he rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state but welcomed Trump’s recognition of Israel’s territorial claims to the settlements in the West Bank in biblical terms.

He also called for the immediate annexation of the portions of territory in the West Bank that are designated to Israel under the Trump plan.

“On Sunday, G- d willing, it will happen. Those who dare, win,” Smotrich said.

“The American recognition of the biblical and historic right of the Jewish people over the entire Land of Israel is the realization of a substantial stage in the words of the prophets,” he said.

“From our perspective, it is sovereignty now, an Arab state never,” Smotrich said.

Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.