Israeli opposition leader and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that he “will not allow a Palestinian state to be established”, even at the cost of normalisation with Saudi Arabia.
“I am not giving up territory, period,” Bennett said in an interview with Israeli Channel 12, stating repeatedly that he will advocate for sweeping reforms across the Israeli state if elected.
Israel is gearing up for a general election on 27 October, widely seen as one of the most consequential in the country’s history, which could end Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure and that of his right-wing Likud Party.
A recent poll by the Israeli newspaper Maariv showed Likud dropping to 20 seats, followed by Yashar party, led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, which reached a record poll high of 23 seats. Bennett's Together party came third in the polling with 17 seats.
The two-state solution is central to discussions surrounding the Abraham Accords, the normalisation agreements between Arab states and Israel.
