At the Tel Aviv press conference, Netanyahu is asked by a reporter why he did not withdraw from the Oslo Accords, given that he keeps criticizing them.
“I inherited the Oslo Accords,” he says. “The decision to bring the PLO from Tunis, and plant it in the heart of Judea and Samaria [West Bank], and in Gaza, was a decision made and implemented before I became prime minister. I thought it was a terrible mistake and I still do.”
Turning on the reporter, he says: “You and your journalist friends have been blaming me for almost 30 years for putting the brakes on the Oslo Accords, and preventing the Palestinian state. That’s true,” he says.
“I’m proud that I prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state because today everybody understands what that Palestine state could have been, now that we’ve seen the little Palestinian state in Gaza. Everyone understands what would have happened if we had capitulated to international pressures and enabled a state like that in Judea and Samaria, surrounding Jerusalem and on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant describes his own role in the 1990s as a senior IDF officer in Jenin tackling terrorism, and reducing it to a low. Then came the Oslo Accords, “and after a short time, 500 armed Palestinian policemen landed” in the Jenin area, “another 5,000 elsewhere in Judea and Samaria and 7,000 in Gaza.” That started a process with dire consequences, including the vast proliferation of weapons. “The Oslo Accords started that process” and the accords were rife with errors, Gallant says.
Answering a question about the Houthi threat, Gallant says the Yemeni rebels started out attacking ostensibly Israel-affiliated ships and are now attacking all kinds of shipping. “It’s a world problem that also affects Israel,” he says.
He adds that the Houthis have fired “dozens of missiles” at Israel, most of which were destroyed. “We are ready to act. We know what to do. We will find the timing,” says Gallant.
“We are giving a chance” for the international community to deal with the threat to shipping.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/pm-im-proud-i-blocked-a-palestinian-state-looking-at-gaza-everyone-sees-what-would-have-happened/.
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