Brooks: Netanyahu Didn’t Say There Would Never Be a Palestinian State

New York Times columnist David Brooks, who has a son serving in the Israeli military, argued that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not say that he would never accept a Palestinian state on Friday’s “PBS NewsHour.”

“The stuff on the Palestinian state, I think is a much more complicated story. It’s been reported that he’s saying he’s never going to have a Palestinian state, that’s not how I read it then and certainly not what he said, I think what he said, if you read the exact quote, is that today with Islamic radicalism on the rise, more or less, he meant it would be reckless to allow there to be a Palestinian state in the West Bank or in Gaza for today, I don’t think he said it forevermore. So, I think it’s a little more complicated, I think that’s an — it’s arguable position, whether with Hamas and ISIS around whether there should be a Palestinian state, but it’s a defensible position given the current circumstance” he stated.

Brooks also said, “he’s [Netanyahu] a fascinating figure. He’s, we say Nixonian about a lot of people, he really is Nixonian, he’s brilliant, he’s very isolated, and insular…very hard to keep staff cause he [has] a very small circle, and yet survives now. And so I would differentiate the two statements. The statements about the Israeli Arabs was race-baiting or it was voter suppression, plain and simple, it was pandering. It was his attempt to win over the — in his electoral system, he’s not trying to win over left votes, he’s trying to get more right parties into his camp, which he succeeded in doing.”

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