National infrastructures minister says the Palestinian issue is not the key obstacle to peace.
By ARIEL ZIRULNICKUzi Landau 248 88 aj(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The Palestinian issue is not the key obstacle to peace, National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau said Tuesday night at a gathering of the Israel Beiteinu Anglo division in Jerusalem.
Landau said the media insinuated that "the Palestinian problem is the problem," and that solving it would bring peace, but that this was not true.
"An independent Palestinian state will not bring a solution," he said.
He also expressed opposition to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's proposal for a demilitarized Palestinian state.
"We speak about a Palestinian state," Landau said. "The title is Palestinian, but the nature is going to be Iranian, and Hamas surely will have the upper hand."
Citing North Korea's recent nuclearization and the reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as examples, the minister said the Palestinians would also radicalize and defy the West.
"What kind of a tremendous victory would that be for the Axis of Evil?" he asked.
He also expressed doubt that rejecting US President Barack Obama's demands to freeze settlement activity would lead to the end of American aid.
Former prime minister Menachem Begin bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 without a green light from the US government, Landau said.
"We deeply believe in our right to settle [the Land of Israel]," he said, and demanding Israel freeze its settlement activity is an "immoral position."
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