In a tv interview on Thursday, right-wing Israeli journalist Yaakov Bardugo was discussing with Netanyahu the prospect of diplomatic normalisation with Saudi Arabia when he appeared to misspeak, attributing to Riyadh the stance that there can be “no progress and not using a Saudi state”.
“Palestinian state?” Netanyahu corrected him.
“Except you need the Palestinian state to be in Saudi Arabia,” the Israeli premier quipped. “They (the Saudis) have loads of territory.”
Bardugo responded that he did “not rule this out”.
Netanyahu went on to explain the talks main as much as the so-called Abraham Accords, during which a number of Arab international locations normalised ties with Israel, concluding: “I feel we must always enable this course of to take its course.”
However the suggestion of a state for Palestinians exterior the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Financial institution prompted an outpouring of regional condemnation, together with from Qatar, Egypt and the Palestinian overseas ministry, which described the remarks as “racist”.
For Palestinians, any try to drive them out of Gaza would evoke darkish recollections of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba”, or disaster – the mass displacement of Palestinians throughout Israel’s creation in 1948.
In its assertion, Saudi Arabia stated “this extremist, occupying mentality doesn’t perceive what the Palestinian land means” to Palestinians.
Such a mindset, it added, “doesn’t assume that the Palestinian folks should reside within the first place, because it has fully destroyed the Gaza Strip” and killed tens of 1000’s “with out the slightest human feeling or ethical duty”.
