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Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz: "After everything that happened"
Photo: Sebastian Scheiner / AFP
Great Britain wants to bring movement to the Middle East conflict - and initiate a process towards a two-state solution. But in Israel they don't want to hear about it yet. Foreign Minister Israel Katz has now dismissed the British move and similar statements from Washington and Berlin.
“It is absolutely absurd that after everything that has happened, Israel is now being told that a two-state solution is the right thing,” said Israel Katz to the “Bild” newspaper, Welt TV and Politico. In view of the fact that Palestinians have killed Jews, Palestinians will not be given the task of being responsible for the safety of Jews in the future. His country will retain responsibility for security in the Gaza Strip for several more years. This applies “until we are sure that we will no longer be killed by the residents of Gaza,” said Katz.
At the same time, however, the Foreign Minister clearly rejected calls from within his own government for Israeli repopulation of the Gaza Strip after the end of the war: “That will not happen. The government's policy is clear, even if individual ministers say otherwise. Israel's right-wing extremist police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir recently demanded that Israeli settlers return to the coastal strip. He also called for “encouraging an exodus (of Palestinians).” Only this could prevent another massacre like the one on October 7th.
Hope for cooperation with Arab states
Katz on the future of the Gaza Strip, a model must be created together with the Arab states and other countries that will enable the more than two million Palestinians there to live their lives in a different way than before.
The two-state solution means an independent Palestinian state that exists peacefully side by side with Israel. The militant Islamist terrorist organization Hamas also rejects this. It seeks the creation of a Palestinian state in the entire area west of the Jordan River. She wants to destroy the state of Israel.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron had floated the idea of paving the way for the moment to formally recognize a Palestinian state. Such a move would help make a two-state solution an irreversible process, Cameron said. It is necessary to show the Palestinians a "political horizon" in order to end the conflict with Israel. The Palestinians must be shown irreversible progress towards a two-state solution.
The Palestinian ambassador in London, Husam Zomlot, spoke of a historic moment. For the first time, a British Foreign Secretary is considering recognizing a Palestinian state as a contribution to a peace solution and not as a result of it.
mrc/dpa