The Palestinian Authority said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Tuesday amounted to a unilateral declaration that talks were over.
Nabil Shaath told Agence France-Presse that Netanyahu’s remarks were “an official announcement of a unilateral end to negotiations,” and that the Palestinians “totally reject” a demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Netanyahu had used his remarks to reiterate his support for the two-state solution, focusing most of his attacks on the Iranian nuclear program and on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The only issue on which the Israeli prime minister took a controversial stance had been the potential U.S. demand that Israel accept international peacekeepers in the Jordan Valley. Netanyahu only wants Israeli soldiers deployed there.