Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday evening declared that he was prepared to see the establishment of a Palestinian state, so long as the international community could guarantee it did not have any military capabilities.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, June 14, 2009. Netanyahu Sunday night called on the Palestinians to resume Middle East peace talks without preconditions and presented three conditions for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. [Pool-Baz Ratner/Xinhua]
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Netanyahu made the remarks while he delivered a highly-anticipated foreign policy speech at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University.
"Israel can not agree to a Palestinian state unless it gets the guarantee that it is demilitarized," said the Israeli prime minister who took office in late March.
Netanyahu also said that Palestinians must accept Israel as a Jewish state, and cited the root of the regional conflict to "even moderate" Palestinian elements' refusal to do so.
"When Palestinians are ready to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, we will be ready for a true final settlement," he said, emphasizing that the Jewish people have been linked to the land of Israel for over 3,000 years and ruling out the option of granting Palestinian refugees the right to settle within Israeli borders.
The speech at Bar Ilan University came in the wake of the Obama administration's insistence that Israel recognize the two-state solution and impose a complete freeze on West Bank settlement construction.
