Riyadh has insisted over the past year that a clear pathway towards Palestinian statehood is a precondition for it establishing official ties with Israel, an idea that Netanyahu threw scorn on in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14 on Thursday.
“The Saudis can create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia; they have a lot of land over there,” Netanyahu said, dismissing the kingdom’s insistence on the establishment of a Palestinian state .
In comments made to Middle East Eye, Labour MP Afzal Khan, vice-chair of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, labelled Netanyahu’s proposals “barbaric”.
“Palestinians do not need more displacement. They need a free homeland,” he stated, adding, “Netanyahu’s barbaric proposals would be the forced removal of a population and a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza.”
Labour is currently in power, and Khan announced the government “has expressed its unequivocal disapproval of any plans to displace Palestinians. We stand firm against such flagrant abuses of international law”.
He urged Netanyahu to “engage with Saudi Arabia’s proposed plans to ensure Palestinians can return to an independent Palestinian state and allow for a secure Israel”.
Another Labour MP, Kim Johnson, told MEE that Netanyahu’s comments were “absurd and insulting”.
“The future of Palestine must be determined by the Palestinian people, not dictated by external powers,” she added, urging the government to immediately recognise a Palestinian state.
“The foreign secretary must object to Netanyahu’s proposal in the very strongest terms.”
Britain’s foreign office declined to comment on Netanyahu’s remarks, but pointed MEE to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s statement on Wednesday that Palestinians “must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that on the way to a two-state solution”.
Independent MP Adnan Hussain also attacked Netanyahu’s comments.
“I don’t think the words of a war criminal with arrest warrants out in his name should be given too much credibility or importance,” he told MEE.
“His dreams of the mass displacement of the Palestinian people are his admittance to wanting to carry out further egregious war crimes,” he continued, adding, “Britain should play its part in recognising and upholding the rights and principles clearly outlined under international law.”
This latest development comes as Saudi Arabia and Israel seem to be moving further away than ever from normalising relations – over a year after US officials claimed an agreement was close.
Chris Doyle, chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, told MEE that the Israeli prime minister appeared to be “pushing back against the Saudis to make a point”.
“He’s trying to demonstrate as a negotiating stance that he’s not desperate to do a deal with Saudi Arabia,” Doyle said, adding, “But he does want a deal. He wants an historic agreement that will divorce Saudi Arabia from the Palestinian cause.”
Netanyahu made the remarks while on an official state visit to the US, just days after President Donald Trump announced his plan on Tuesday for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza to make the enclave the “Riviera of the Mediterranean”, with the US taking over the territory.
Trump claimed that Saudi Arabia was not insisting on a Palestinian state as a condition for normalisation, prompting the Saudi foreign ministry to issue a statement at 4am insisting that the kingdom’s stance on Palestinian statehood was “firm and unwavering”.
Doyle said Riyadh realises “they cannot afford to abandon the Palestinians right now, domestically if for no other reason. The anger would be extreme.”
Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, agreed.
“I don’t think the Saudis view normalisation as realistic with the current government in Israel in place,” he told MEE.
“This was a political comment made by Netanyahu to appease his base, who are concerned that Netanyahu has to make concessions to the Palestinians to get normalisation with Saudi Arabia,” he added.
“Like with Trump, these are political, populist narratives that could be subject to change if Israel was serious about engaging Saudi Arabia.”
Krieg noted that Netanyahu’s remarks were “completely out of sync with the policies of probably 193 UN member states outside the US and Israel”, all of whom agree that Palestinians have a “right to self-determination within the historic boundaries of Palestine”.
