Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, called the recognition of the UK of Palestine on Sunday “an absurd prize for terrorism”.
In comments to ministers released by his office, he said that Israel “would have fought against us both in the UN and in all other fronts against the defamatory propaganda, and against the calls to create a Palestinian state that will endanger our existence and form an absurd price for terrorism.”
In a post on X, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel wrote that the VK Palestine as a state recognized “nothing but a reward for jihadist Hamas”.
“Hamas leaders themselves give openly: this recognition is a direct result, the 'fruit' for the massacre of October 7. Do not let the jihadist ideology dictate your policy,” read the post.
Israeli officials have put forward this argument in recent weeks, while trying to distract the growing momentum in the UK, France, Canada, Portugal and others to recognition.
Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser of Netanyahu, said that Hamas could now tell the Palestinians that without his attack from 2023, who killed around 1200, the recognition of Palestine would not have happened by the UK and others.
“It will be conceived as a reward for them, and Starmer has lost every leverage he had … and [a Palestinian state] Will not happen, “said Amidror, an analyst at the conservative Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America in Washington.
“Israel is determined to destroy the terrorist organization called Hamas. Some of our friends all over the world have decided that Hamas should survive and Israel should leave the Gaza Strip, our hostages should take … There is a gap here that cannot be bridged with fun words.”
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But successive opinion polls in Israel have shown a strong question of a negotiated end of the conflict in Gaza. Support for the coalition government of Netanyahu, the right-wing most in Israel's history, has fallen further since the Prime Minister called on Israelis last week to accept the growing international insulation of the country and to become a “super-sparta”.
Tens of thousands demonstrated in Israel during the weekend against the government and for a deal that would return the Israeli hostages to be confiscated during the invasion of 2023 and since then by Hamas in Gaza.
A coalition of groups representing the families of the hostages on Sunday said that “the unconditional recognition of different nations of a Palestinian state convicted, while it makes an eye for the fact that 48 hostages in Hamas remain captivity after the massacre on October 7”.
The leader of the opposition Democrats Party, Yair Golan, said that the recognition by the UK was a serious political failure by Netanyahu and his extreme right -wing Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich.
“This is a direct consequence of the political recklessness of Netanyahu: refusal to put an end to the war and the dangerous choice of occupation and annexation,” said Golan. “The issue of a demilitarized Palestinian state can and must be part of a broad regional regulation led by Israel that guarantees our safety interests.”
A question now is how Israel responds. Analysts in Israel suggest that Netanyahu will only make a decision at the end of the month after his coming trip to Washington.
Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the extreme right-wing Minister of Security, called for wholesalers annexation of the occupied West Bank.
“The days that Great Britain and other countries were to determine that our future are over … The only reaction to this anti-Israeli movement is sovereignty about the historic home country of the Judea and Samaria, and the foolishness of a Palestinian state permanently removing from the agenda,” Smotrich said on X.
