Israel’s ambassador to Britain Tzipi
Hotovely said Israel would not accept a Two-state solution with the
Palestinians after the war with Hamas in Gaza ends.
The conflict, now in its third month,
began after the Palestinian group’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel
that Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
In response, Israel began a relentless
bombardment and ground invasion that has killed 18,608 people, mostly women and
children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry’s latest toll.
Tzipi Hotovely told Sky News that she
did not believe in the long-standing position of the UK Government and the
United Nations that an independent Palestinian State should be established.
“The answer is absolutely no,” Hotovely
said when pressed on the issue.
“Israel knows today, and the world
should know now that the reason the Oslo Accords failed is because the
Palestinians never wanted to have a State next to Israel.
“They want to have a State from the
river to the sea,” she added.
The Oslo Accords, signed between Israel
and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1993 aimed to bring “peaceful
coexistence” to Israel and the Palestinians.
The agreement was based on UN
resolutions that said the Palestinian people had the right to
self-determination.
“Why are you obsessed with a formula
(the two-state solution) that never worked, that created this radical people on
the other side,” Hotovely added.
She said the Palestinian Authority had
still not condemned Hamas’s attack.
“It’s now two months after the war
started. It’s such a big problem.”
UK Prime Minister Sunak said in response
that he didn’t agree with Hotovely’s remarks.
“Our long standing position is that the
two-State solution remains the right outcome here,” he told reporters.
Rishi Sunak said he had told Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his country “must take every available
precaution to protect innocent civilian lives”.
AFP
