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 could 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, through which a number of Arab nations normalised ties with Israel, concluding: “I believe we must always permit 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 and 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 mentioned “this extremist, occupying mentality doesn’t perceive what the Palestinian land means” to Palestinians.
Such a mindset, it added, “doesn’t suppose that the Palestinian individuals need to stay within the first place, because it has utterly destroyed the Gaza Strip” and killed tens of hundreds “with out the slightest human feeling or ethical accountability”.
