Source: New Republic
No one except, perhaps, Secretary of State John Kerry, thinks that the current Israeli government is willing to negotiate in good faith a two-state solution. As Mairav Zonszein writes on the website, +972, members of Binyamin Netanyahu’s cabinet and party are now openly declaring the two-state solution dead.Prior to joining the government Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, the head of the Jewish Home party, had expressed opposition to a Palestinian state, but Bennett made sure yesterday that no one was under the illusion that he had changed his mind:
Bennett stated that "the idea of forming a Palestinian state in Israel has reached a dead end,” speaking at a settler council meeting Monday morning, comparing the “Palestinian problem” to a “piece of shrapnel” lodged in someone’s rear end; that one needs to learn to live with a pain in the ass rather than surgically remove it and risk becoming disabled.
Israeli cabinet officials often disagree with each other and with the Prime Minister, but if Netanyahu had been genuinely committed to the peace process, this kind of statement would have at least caused a tremor.