Netanyahu’s rival pledges separation from Palestinians

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main election challenger Benny Gantz has vowed to enact a policy of “separation” from the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Mr Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party was launching its election platform on Wednesday.

It said that once in power it would confer with Arab states “and intensify the process of separation from the Palestinians, while ensuring an uncompromising commitment to Israel’s national security”.

The move is risky for Israeli politics. Incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu survived four terms based on his policy of not giving land to the Palestinians.

Mr Gantz’s policy envisages Israel holding control of the Jordan Valley and blocks of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

But it is unclear on what might be done with more isolated outposts in territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Yair Lapid, whose party has allied with Mr Gantz’s to form Blue and White, told Israel’s Ynet TV: “I believe that, in separating from the Palestinians, we will ultimately arrive at two states.

“But no responsible politician would get into details before the Trump plan is presented.”

US President Donald Trump is expected to unveil a Middle East peace plan after the Israeli election.

Opinion polls give Blue and White about 35 of parliament’s 120 seats, compared with 30 for Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party.

The Palestinians were sceptical of Mr Lapid’s comments.

“What does he mean by a state?” asked Wasel Abu Youssef, an official in the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

“We want a Palestinian sovereign state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, empty of settlements, with territories that are connected, not isolated.”

In 2009, pressured by the Obama administration, Mr Netanyahu said he would accept a Palestinian state under provisos.

But with talks sponsored by the US stalled since 2014, he has shifted tone, pledging never to uproot West Bank settlements.

“A Palestinian state would endanger our existence,” Mr Netanyahu said last month. “This is what they [Gantz and Lapid] are planning to do. They obscure it. They hide it.”

Most world powers consider the settlements illegal and support independence for Palestinians, who want statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as their capital.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war, in a move that has not won international recognition, and regards all of the city as its capital.