Yashar party chair and election frontrunner Gadi Eisenkot said that anyone who still believes in the two-state solution following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack is “delusional,” but criticized the government for pushing ahead with the controversial E1 settlement plan, which would block territorial contiguity between major Palestinian population centers in the West Bank.
The former military chief also lamented the spiraling settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, in an excerpt from an interview with the Israel Hayom daily that will be published in full on Friday.
“Anyone who is thinking about a two-state solution after October 7 is just delusional,” said Eisenkot, when asked about the broadly accepted international stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But at the same time, he said that the E1 settlement project — which supporters have said is intended to block a path to Palestinian statehood — was a “mistake” costing Israel on the international stage.
“I recall that Netanyahu himself opposed this for a long time, and due to coalition pressure, he gave in and approved it,” he said of the plan.
