Israeli opposition leader and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that he “will not allow a Palestinian state to be established”, even at the cost of normalisation with Saudi Arabia.
“I am not giving up territory, period,” Bennett said in an interview with Israeli Channel 12, stating repeatedly that he will advocate for sweeping reforms across the Israeli state if elected.
Israel is gearing up for a general election on 27 October, widely seen as one of the most consequential in the country’s history, which could end Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure and that of his right-wing Likud Party.
A recent poll by the Israeli newspaper Maariv showed Likud dropping to 20 seats, followed by Yashar party, led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, which reached a record poll high of 23 seats. Bennett’s Together party came third in the polling with 17 seats.
Bennett’s opposition to a two-state solution is nothing new: he has long maintained that he will do everything in his power to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
He went further in 2018, saying that if he became defence minister, he would authorise a “shoot-to-kill” policy against Palestinians attempting to cross the Gaza-Israel border.
When asked whether this policy would apply to children, he replied: “They are not children. They are terrorists.”