Following U.S. President Joe Biden's statement on Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might support a demilitarized Palestinian state, the Israeli government refuted it. 

After Biden’s comments at press conference on Friday evening, the Prime Minister’s Office released a statement the following day, stating: “In his conversation with President Biden, Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated his policy that after Hamas is destroyed Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty.” 

Several coalition ministers were quick to make statements of their own, indicating their unwillingness to budge on the issue of Palestinian statehood. 

Former Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, from Netanyahu’s Likud party, wrote on social media: “A Palestinian state is a reward for terror and a threat to the State of Israel. It will encourage the murder of Jews and give a supporting spirit to Iran’s Axis of Evil. We will not give our hands to it!” 

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, head of the Jewish Power party, posted: “I indeed deny a Palestinian state. Forever!” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionism party, wrote: “There is in Israel a broad agreement against a Palestinian state and the division of the land. The friends of Israel need to understand that the push to establish a Palestinian state is a push for the next massacre, God forbid, and a threat to the existence of the state of Israel." 

“As happened in Israel, also in the White House, they need to wake up from the conceptions which lead to the Israeli national calamity,” Smotrich added.

Aliyah and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer said in an interview with Army Radio: "A Palestinian state will not be established."

Israeli leaders reportedly do not trust the Palestinian Authority to be an honest partner in any peace agreement, as leaders from the PA not only publicly praised the Oct. 7 invasion and surprise attack by Hamas terrorists but have also called for attacks against Israel in the past. 

Read the full article at All Israel News.