The Knesset vote against a two-state solution comes as Netanyahu prepares for a trip to the United States and negotiations on a hostage deal that could include discussions of Palestinian sovereignty.
Flags of Israel, February 2023. (Bar, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
By Jessica Corbett
Common Dreams
While Israel’s troops wage what has been widely decried as genocide on the Gaza Strip, Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing “the establishment of a Palestinian state” west of the Jordan River.
The measure passed Israel’s legislature, the Knesset, 68-9. It was spearheaded by Knesset Member Zeev Elkin of New Hope-The United Right, who shared the key messages from the resolution on social media along with a photo of the final tally.
According to Religious Zionism-affiliated Israel National News, The proposal says,
Israeli politician Ze’ev Elkin in 2018. (Reuven Kopitchinski, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
“The Israeli Knesset firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan. The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the land of Israel will pose an existential threat to the state of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and destabilize the region.
It will only be a matter of a short time until Hamas takes over the Palestinian state and turns it into a base of radical Islamic terrorism, working in coordination with the axis led by Iran, to eliminate the state of Israel.”
“The promotion of the idea of the Palestinian state will be a reward for terrorism and will only encourage Hamas and its supporters who will see this as a victory thanks to the massacre of October 7, 2023, and a prelude to the takeover of jihadist Islam in the Middle East,” the proposal reads.
Since the Hamas-led October attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed at least 38,794 Palestinians and wounded another 89,364, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Thousands more remain missing and believed dead beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.
In addition to destroying civilian infrastructure across the Hamas-governed coastal enclave, Israel has restricted the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, even as people starve and the remaining hospitals operate at a limited capacity.
In essence, the Israeli Knesset voted to continue to wipe Palestine off the map… https://t.co/yG4ORfuZwr
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) July 17, 2024
Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders.
“What is happening in Gaza is going down as the most documented genocide in history,” Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s permanent observer at the United Nations, told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday. “When will the world denounce the crimes and stop tolerating their reoccurrence?”
BREAKING: For the first time in history, the Israeli Knesset has passed a resolution opposing a two state solution. pic.twitter.com/V7t8kOdJ09
— AIPAC Tracker (@TrackAIPAC) July 17, 2024
The Knesset vote against a two-state solution comes as Netanyahu prepares for a trip to the United States — whose government has provided political and weapons support for Israel’s war. The prime minister is supposed to meet U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House next Monday before addressing a joint session of Congress, though the American leader is isolating after testing positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday.
“The measure was intended as a way to apply pressure on Netanyahu, since he is likely to face opposite pressure from U.S. officials on a hostage deal that could include future discussions of Palestinian sovereignty,” The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday. “Netanyahu himself was not present at the vote.”
As the newspaper detailed:
“Notably, National Unity chairman MK Benny Gantz supported the proposal alongside three other members of his party, which is considered centrist. The three were MKs Michael Biton, Pnina Tameno-Shete, and Chili Tropper.
Gantz said after the vote, ‘National Unity is committed in any future political scenario, as long as it exists, to preserve the Jewish and democratic identity of the state of Israel, and to stand up for its historical right and security interests.’”
Members of various other parties — Netanyahu’s Likud, Otzma Yehudit, Religious Zionism, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Yisrael Beytenu — also voted in favor of the resolution.
Jessica Corbett is a staff writer for Common
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
And NO MORE STATEHOOD for USrael!!!
It would be funny if it were not so ridiculous. If the Israeli occupier colonisers will not allow Palestinian freedom and a State in their homeland then they have to create one State to be shared equally by the native Palestinians and any Israelis who choose to remain in a democratic Palestine. The Palestinians will be a majority in such a state but it will be a democracy and all religions will be secondary to citizenship.
The Israelis have been truly stupid in Palestine. As if they could permanently subjugate, oppress and abuse millions of Palestinians and forever deny them justice, freedom and human and civil rights.
“Since the Hamas-led October attack on Israel…” shoul read “Since the Hamas-led October counterattack on Israel…”
There are 120 voting members at Knesset. 68+9 is 77. 43 votes are missing. Why?
This is not surprising but still very, very disturbing. One can only hope that this all backfires on Israel – which is what it deserves.
Why does Israel get to decide anything? It stole the land to begin with. The Israelis are charlatans and liars. Jews feel they are special because the world believes they have something to do with God. Disabusing the world of this fallacy is a start.
exactly. Israel does not get the right to decide. They set up their religious fascist state in the heartland of Palestine which is the homeland of the Palestinian people and no-one else.
No need for conspiracy
Between the paranoid ultra-violent and hegemonic Israelis and the deranged and imperialistic NATO that’s bent on vilifying China and Russia to a degree I never thought possible, we’re looking at an extremely precarious near future in which the American public absolutely must be astute and on top of things.
The deep state is pretty much operating openly and utilizing giant media conglomerates with ties to the MIC to carry out slick propaganda on a scale that’s almost unprecedented. In fact, majorities of the U.S. citizenry erroneously think Russia and China are serious threats to the safety of the American people here on the domestic home front.
There’s no need for activists and the public to get bogged down in fanciful and silly conspiracy theories about how the deep state purportedly conspired to assassinate Trump, a gigantic conspiracy effort fraught with the potential for detection. Why would the deep state have a motive to carry out a conspiracy of such magnitude when Trump was instrumental in getting passed a few months ago the $61 billion for the Ukie war and $26 billion for the Israeli psychopaths to continue their genocide against the Palestinians?
Indeed, certain elements of our ruling class have always been disenchanted with Trump, but for them to carry out a preposterous conspiracy to murder Trump is beyond laughable. Most of the deep state are pretty much getting what they need from Trump anyway and will very likely do so after he’s elected in Nov.