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Israeli premier turns down establishment of a normalized Palestinian state

 
Netanyahu would only recognize a demilitarised state on condition that Palestinians acknowledge Israel as a 'Jewish state' and renounce to negotiate the refugee issue · The Palestinian government has accused Tel Aviv of 'sabotaging' the peace talks.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted the creation of a Palestinian state to put an end to a conflict that has been destabilizing the Middle East for the last 60 years. Conditions to back the two-state solution, though, are so infeasible so as to hinder the peace process even more. Haaretz newspaper, quotes the Israeli leader as saying that his government would only agree to a Palestinian state if "it gets guarantees it is demilitarized". Moreover, Netanyahu do not want Palestinians to control their own air space; calls for Jerusalem, which was occupied in 1967, to remain the "united" capital of Israel; denies the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, and wants the Palestinian side to recognise Israel as the land of the Jewish people, despite the fact that a considerable amount of Muslim Palestinians live within Israeli borders.

Netanyahu's stance has been welcomed by the US government as an "important step forward", but has been rejected by the Palestinian and the Arab world side. An official from the Palestinian National Authority has said that Netanyahu's conditions "have sabotaged all initiatives, paralysed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions".

According to BBC, a Hamas spokesman said in Gaza that the Prime Minister's speech was "racist", and called on Arab nations to "form stronger opposition" towards Israel.

President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak, one of the Arab key mediators in the Middle East peace negotiations, has declared that Netanyahu's demands "abort" the chances for a peace deal. In this regard, Mubarak finds particularly disturbing the demand that Palestinians recognise Israel as the land of the Jews.

As Bloomberg.com reports, the Al Hayat Saudi newspaper read that "Netanyahu Threatens Peace Efforts", while the Lebanese journal Assafir newspaper said the Israeli leader's remarks were more "like a declaration of war than an offer to negotiate".

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