Right-wing Israelis are reportedly no longer interested in a two-state solution with the Palestinians after they have been emboldened by President Donald Trump, who recently made the controversial decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which is currently shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims.
The New York Times reported this week that the "Israeli right wing is moving quickly in the new year to make it far more difficult to create a Palestinian state, signaling its intention to doom hopes for a two-state solution to the conflict."
According to the Times, President Trump's decision has encouraged right-wing Israelis to suggest that Palestinians would never have their own state, leaving them in an apartheid-style limbo at the mercy of the Israeli government.
“We are telling the world that it doesn’t matter what the nations of the world say,” Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan was quoted telling over a thousand members of Likud’s central committee. “The time has come to express our biblical right to the land.”
Terrestrial Jerusalem's Daniel Seidemann said that Israelis are now openly talking about making apartheid the permanent solution for Palestinians.
“What was winked and nodded about before is now being acknowledged publicly: ‘We have no intent of sharing this land with anybody else except as a barely tolerated minority,’” Seidemann explained to the Times.
Israel’s attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, over the weekend published instructions that require all new laws to explain how they would be applied to Palestinian terroriries.
The Times added:
But opponents of the occupation said the little-noticed bureaucratic move had great significance. “The Knesset cannot pass laws that are valid in Japan,” said Hagit Ofran, an advocate at Peace Now, a leftist group that opposes settlements, referring to the Israeli Parliament. “You can only legislate in places that you have jurisdiction. And if they claim jurisdiction over occupied territories, it means they’re annexed.”Mr. Seidemann, of Terrestrial Jerusalem, said that measures applying Israeli law to Israelis living in the occupied territories would formally set up a democratic system for Israelis while leaving Palestinians subject to military rule.
“That narrows the comfort zone between Israel and the a-word rather dramatically,” he said, referring to apartheid.
