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Bennett warns: Trump, Netanyahu dead set on PLO state

The leader of the New Right party charged Netanyahu with agreeing to a forthcoming Trump peace plan that Bennett claims would divide Jerusalem and create an independent Palestinian state.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Before entering Sunday’s cabinet meeting, leader of the New Right party Naftali Bennett claimed that the American peace plan includes giving the Palestinians a state and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to do so.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump agreed on launching the plan to establish a Palestinian state immediately after the elections,” Bennett charged. “They are acting in coordination not to present the plan before the [April 9] elections so as not to make it difficult for Netanyahu, but a day or two after the elections the plan will be presented for the establishment of a Palestinian state on 90% of the area, including the division of Jerusalem.”

Netanyahu would only be able to do this if the two parties projected to get the largest number of seats in the upcoming Knesset formed a coalition – the Likud and the Blue and White party, which is an amalgamation of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and newcomer Benny Gantz’s National Resilience party.

The latest poll, taken right after the parties’ lists had to be presented to the Central Elections Committee Thursday night, showed that the Blue and White party would win 35 seats, and the Likud 29 if elections were held today.

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Bennett said the plan is already in the works.

“Lapid and Gantz will enter the government as a national peace government,” he said, and added a push for his own new party. “The only way to stop this is with a strong and real ‘New Right.’”

No one in the region has seen Trump’s entire “Deal of the Century” plan, which the U.S. president has touted for two years. It now appears that the plan will be publicized immediately following the Israeli elections.

The prime minister immediately debunked Bennett’s claims.

“It’s natural that he’s under pressure. He got a bit mixed up,” Netanyahu said. “Elections do all sorts of strange things to small parties, including saying baseless things.”

The Likud issued a statement declaring that Bennett’s words are “total nonsense that [have] no connection to reality.”

“After the elections, Netanyahu will establish a right-wing government headed by himself,” the statement concluded.

Netanyahu claimed last Thursday that a government led by the Blue and White party “would destroy Israel economically and establish a Palestinian state on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, next to Afula, next to Beer Sheva. A Palestinian state that will threaten our existence.”