Netanyahu Defies Biden Administration Push For Two-State Solution: ‘Israel Must Be Able To Say No’

Benjamin Netanyahu forcefully pushed back on the Biden administration’s support for a separate Palestinian state, saying “Israel must be able to say no,” even to the United States.

The Israeli Prime Minister made the following statement on the idea of a two-state solution, which CNN edited for brevity:

The state of Israel must control the security of all the land which is west of the Jordan river. That is a truth that I’m saying to our friends the Americans and I have blocked an attempt to force upon us a reality which will hurt the security of Israel. The prime minister in Israel must be able to say no, even to the closest of our friends.

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand called the Netanyahu’s statement a “stark departure” from the U.S. position that “the creation of a Palestinian state is really the only solution to the conflict that we have been seeing.”

“Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, he emphasized at Davos just the other day that the only path for regional security for Israel’s security is to have this two-state solution,” Bertrand said, continuing:

Now, U.S. Officials are saying that Netanyahu’s comments there are not the final word on the issue. And a senior administration official actually told my colleagues just yesterday that if we took such statements as the final word, then there would be no humanitarian assistance going into Gaza and no hostages released, essentially saying that they have been able to change Netanyahu’s position on things that he was previously a hard-liner on in the last few months, over the course of this war. They have managed to change Israel’s behavior and posture successfully.

Bertrand said the administration believed a two-state solution was “the only path towards Israel’s normalization with its Arab and Muslim partners,” and that Saudi Arabia wanted to “see progress being made” toward the creation of a Palestinian state before normalization talks can progress.

Bertrand added that Netanyahu and President Joe Biden haven’t spoken since last month after previously speaking “much more regularly.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.