The Palestinian state will no longer be a topic when U.S. president-elect, Donald Trump takes office next month, a top right-wing Israeli minister said on Thursday.
“Palestine will be taken off the agenda’’ come January 20, said Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who also vowed to advance initiatives that would annex large parts of the West Bank.
The Jewish Home Party Leader criticised the speech by the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as “totally out of touch with reality’’.
Kerry used one of his last speeches as secretary of state to scold Israel for expanding its settlements, warning that it was putting the two-state solution in “serious jeopardy’’.
Though, he did not explicitly name Bennett, Kerry quoted him several times in the speech while warning that “the settler agenda is defining the future of Israel’’.
Bennett has been a leading supporter of a bill, which recently passed its first reading,that would legalise several settlements.
Trump’s pick of David Friedman for ambassador to Israel, who has said that he does not think Israeli settlement activity is illegal, has heartened those in the pro-settlement camp.
The U.S.-Israeli relationship has turned especially turbulent since the passing of a UN Security Council resolution last week that condemns Israeli settlement activity. (dpa/NAN)