There is “no way” to solve Israel’s long-term security challenges in the region and the short-term challenges of rebuilding Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday.
Speaking at a news briefing, Miller said Israel had an opportunity right now as countries in the region were ready to provide security assurances to Israel.
“But there is no way to solve their long-term challenges to provide lasting security and there is no way to solve the short-term challenges of rebuilding Gaza and establishing governance in Gaza and providing security for Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Israel launched a massive offensive aimed at eliminating the Hamas terror group, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, after gunmen rampaged through southern communities on October 7, massacring some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping around 240 people to Gaza.
Miller’s comments came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a press conference Thursday that he had told Washington he objected to any Palestinian statehood that did not guarantee Israel’s security, as the country reels from the devastating attacks.
“I clarify that in any arrangement in the foreseeable future, with an accord or without an accord, Israel must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River. That’s a necessary condition,” Netanyahu said in Tel Aviv.
He added that the lack of Palestinian statehood had not stood in the way of normalization agreements with Arab states a few years ago and that he still intended to add more countries to those accords.
Israel and its biggest backer the United States appear at odds now, with Netanyahu and his largely right-wing coalition rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state even though Washington maintains that the two-state solution is the only feasible way to bring lasting peace to the region.
Despite the disagreements, US support for longtime ally Israel “remains ironclad,” Miller said.
“This is not a question of the United States pressuring them to do anything. This is about the United States laying out for them the opportunity that they have.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said there can be “no security and stability in the region” without a Palestinian state, also in response to Netanyahu’s speech.
“Without the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of 1967, there will be no security and stability in the region,” Palestinian state news agency Wafa quoted Abbas’s spokesperson Nabil Abu Rdeineh as saying Thursday. The Palestinians seek Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem — which were captured by Israel in 1967 — for their state.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide also told Norway’s news agency NTB that the rejection of a two-state solution was “completely contrary to the agreements Israel and the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] entered into in Oslo” in 1993.
As part of the deals, Israel recognized the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, while the PLO recognized Israel.
The Palestinian Authority was established as an interim body taking responsibility for governing parts of the West Bank and Gaza, but the process launched in Oslo eventually collapsed without a final status agreement amid the Palestinians’ launch of the Second Intifada.
“The Israeli Prime Minister’s statements are out of step with an almost unified international community,” Barth Eide said in a statement to NTB.
The Norwegian foreign minister said that “a real political solution is needed” to solve the situation.
“Norway believes that there is no credible alternative to a two-state solution, just like the Palestinians themselves, the USA, the EU, the UN and the neighboring Arab countries,” Barth Eide said.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.