In it, Netanyahu argues that a Palestinian demand to dismantle Jewish settlements amounts to the "ethnic cleansing" of some 650,000 Jews living in the occupied territories, in violation of international law.
"The Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: no Jews," he says in the short video posted on Facebook last Friday. "There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing."
Netanyahu's aim was not hard to decipher. He wants yet another obstacle in the way of Palestinian efforts to seek international backing for statehood. It comes as pressure mounts separately from France and Russia for the Israeli government to re-engage in peace talks. [...]
Amal Jamal, a politics professor at Tel Aviv University, told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu's video should be understood as the flipside of his earlier precondition for peace talks: that the Palestinians recognise Israel as an exclusively Jewish state.
That demand was intended as a trap for the Palestinian leadership, especially given that Israel includes 1.7 million Palestinian citizens who already suffer rampant and institutionalised discrimination.
In Friday's video, Netanyahu again exploited the existence of this large minority of Palestinians inside Israel to advance his right-wing agenda. He explicitly equated the settlers in the occupied territories with Israel's Palestinian citizens, saying neither is "an obstacle to peace". [...]
"Neither Lieberman nor Bennett have gone as far as Netanyahu has now in suggesting that the evacuation of any settlement is ethnic cleansing," Jamal said. "That will strengthen him with his power base on the right."
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