Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied on Thursday abandoning his commitment to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, backing away from comments he made during his re-election campaign that drew sharp criticism from Israel's ally the United States.
“I haven't changed my policy. I never retracted my speech in Bar-Ilan University six years ago calling for a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish State,” Netanyahu said in an interview with MSNBC two days after winning a bitterly contested Israeli election.
“What has changed is the reality,” Netanyahu said, citing the Palestinian Authority's refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and the Hamas militant group's continued control of the Gaza Strip.Netanyahu drew a sharp rebuke from the United States and the international community for his comments on the eve of Tuesday's election that there would be no Palestinian state created on his watch. The quest for Palestinian statehood is a cornerstone of both U.S. diplomacy going back decades and President Barack Obama's Middle East policy.
On Wednesday, the White House scolded Netanyahu for abandoning his commitment to negotiate for a Palestinian state and for “divisive” campaign rhetoric toward Israel's minority Arab voters.
Netanyahu backed off his election eve comment on Thursday.
“I don't want a one-state solution. I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution. But for that, circumstances have to change,” he told MSNBC.
In another signal that the Obama administration is looking to turn up the heat on Netanyahu after his re-election, the White House is sending Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, to address the liberal pro-Israel U.S.-based group J Street on Monday.
The group, a proponent of two states side by side, opposed Netanyahu in the election campaign and sharply criticized both his reversal on Palestinian statehood and remarks in which he accused left-wingers from abroad of working to turn out minority Arab Israeli voters to unseat him.
In the television interview, Netanyahu dismissed any suggestion he was racist. “I'm not,” he said.
Netanyahu's frosty relations with Obama worsened when he accepted a Republican invitation to speak to Congress two weeks before the Israeli election, a move assailed by Democratic leaders as an insult to the presidency and a breach of protocol.
Partisan divisions over the Israeli leader burst into the open again in Congress on Thursday when several Republican members accused Obama of throwing a “temper tantrum” over the Netanyahu address.
Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly shot back: “I cannot let that go by. A foreign leader has insulted the head of state of the United States government. It’s not a temper tantrum, and it didn’t start with President Obama.”
Netanyahu, who received a congratulatory phone call from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday, said he was sure he would speak with Obama soon. “We'll work together,” he told MSNBC. “We have to.”
