Netanyahu says 'genuine deradicalization' needed for progress on Palestinian state
'Israel will have to have the overriding security control over that territory for the foreseeable future,' prime minister says
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the resignation of the Palestinian Authority government earlier on Monday, saying a "genuine deradicalization" was needed for Ramallah's goal of uniting the Palestinian territories and eventual statehood.
"I think that’s musical chairs," he told Fox News, responding to PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh submitting resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas.
"They haven't had an election in the Palestinian Authority for 17 years, so they’re just shuffling chairs. But the real thing we want to see is genuine de-radicalization," Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox and Friends.
“They have to stop teaching their children to become terrorists," Netanyahu said. "They have to stop paying terrorists based on the amount of Jews they kill. They have to stop teaching and indoctrinating a whole generation on the annihilation of Israel. That’s real reform. That, so far, has not happened. I hope it does happen, but so far hasn't happened."
The Palestinian Authority, while not complicit in the October 7 attacks in Israel, has nonetheless come under fire for its "pay for slay" policy that pays families of terrorists.
In addition, the curriculum taught in schools both in the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority and in Gaza, under Hamas, promotes armed resistance against the Jewish state.
His view that the ground was not ripe for a Palestinian state was not his "personal opinion" despite international calls for progress on that front.
"It’s the position of the people of Israel," he said. "They’re not stupid. They understand that to just offer a Palestinian state is to give a platform for the repeated attempts to annihilate the Jewish state and Hamas has already promised that if it’s reconstituted, if Israel doesn’t win the war, then they’ll do this October 7 massacre over and over and over again, their words."
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Israelis "support my position in achieving total victory: defeating Hamas, bringing back the hostages and making sure that Gaza doesn’t pose a threat to Israel again. And that means that Israel will have to have the overriding security control over that territory for the foreseeable future. That doesn’t come with unlimited Palestinian sovereignty."