JERUSALEM, Sep 21: Israel has slammed the decisions by the UK, Canada and Australia to recognise Palestinian statehood, with senior Israeli ministers and lawmakers urging drastic countermeasures including the annexation of the West Bank, dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, and the destruction of Hamas, reports Times of Israel.
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana targeted UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer directly, posting a photo of him with the caption: “A modern-day appeaser who chose dishonour.”
Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar called on Israel to apply sovereignty over the West Bank, dismissing Britain’s recognition as a “meaningless statement that reeks of anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he would bring forward a proposal at the next cabinet meeting to annex the West Bank in response to the move.
“The recognition by the UK, Canada, and Australia of a ‘Palestinian’ state, as a prize for the murderous Nukhba terrorists, requires immediate countermeasures,” he declared, calling for “the immediate application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and the complete dismantling of the ‘Palestinian’ Authority.”
Yitzhak Wasserlauf of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party echoed the sentiment, insisting: “The Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the people of Israel – there is no Palestinian people and no Palestinian state.”
Hardliners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have been pressing for annexation as a response to growing international recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich unveiled a plan to annex 82% of the West Bank.
Netanyahu himself, while signing off on a controversial settlement expansion, declared: “There will be no Palestinian state; this place belongs to us.”
(UNI )
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