Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of a two-state solution indefinitely prolongs a conflict that threatens world peace and emboldens extremists everywhere, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday.
AP reports Guterres told a ministerial meeting of the U.N. Security Council “the right of the Palestinian people to build their own fully independent state must be recognized by all, and a refusal to accept the two-state solution by any party must be firmly rejected.”
The alternative of a one-state solution “with such a large number of Palestinians inside without any real sense of freedom, rights and dignity … will be inconceivable,” he further warned, adding to his previous comments on the matter.
Guterres also warned that the risks of regional escalation of the conflict “are now becoming a reality,” pointing to Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Pakistan.
He urged all parties “to step back from the brink and to consider the horrendous costs” of a wider war, the AP report sets out.
Pressure on Israel to accept a Palestinian state as an outcome of the war started by Hamas is coming from other directions beside the United Nations.
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On Sunday the European Union’s top diplomat claimed a two-state solution for Israel-Gaza has “the whole international community” behind it, as Breitbart News reported.
Commission Vice-Present Josep Borrell, the career Spanish Socialist politician who presently serves as the E.U.’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said Israel must heed the directions of others.
“What we want to do is to build a two-state solution, so let’s talk about it… So, from now on, I will not talk about the peace process, but about the two-state solution process. If we are serious about that, we have to study the underlying causes that prevent this solution from being implemented.”
While Borrell acknowledged Hamas “is one of” the problems preventing a two-state solution, he nevertheless said “there are others” in an apparently oblique reference to the Israeli government.
The Biden administration has also been pushing for a Palestinian state, with President Joe Biden calling it “the only way to guarantee the long-term security of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people”, and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken telling the recent Davos forum there needs to be a Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not allow a Palestinian state as long as he remains in office.
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