Benjamin Netanyahu's latest pledge that he wants a two-state solution is hard to believe not just because he said there wouldn't be a Palestinian state as long as he was prime minister. And not only because such a state has never materialized in the almost 20 years that Netanyahu has been prime minister. It is also because of the government Netanyahu formed after his March election victory. Earlier this month, Netanyahu came up with one of Israel's most right-wing government's ever and one which contains several officials openly hostile to a Palestinian state. There is, for example, Dore Gold, who was named director general of foreign affairs. Gold, who was Israel's ambassador to the UN, is seen as reluctant to make concessions to the Palestinians, has relatively hawkish views on the Palestinian issue and has never publicly voiced support for the two-state solution. Even though the new Interior Minister Silvan Shalom, a veteran member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud Party, has been handed responsibility for any future peace talks with the Palestinians, Shalom, too, does not believe in the two-state solution. Gold and Shalom, however, are doves compared to the ladies. In her first major speech after being named deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely declared that all territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, which includes the West Bank, belongs to Israel. Hotovely had this to say after she was sworn in: “This land is ours, all of it is ours. We didn't come here to apologize for this.” Hotovely made the statement in a video speech to Foreign Ministry staff in Jerusalem, which was beamed to 106 Israeli missions overseas. She instructed the envoys to quote the Bible as giving Jews sovereignty over the entire land of Palestine. It is shocking to hear such a senior official lay down scriptural writings as guidelines for Israeli foreign policy. Lastly, Ayelet Shaked, the new justice minister, must win the award for Most Extreme. A Knesset member representing the far-right Jewish Home Party, Shaked is known for extreme, ultranationalist views that go beyond the pale. During Israel's summer 2014 attack on Gaza, Shaked essentially called for the genocide of Palestinians. In a Facebook post this lawmaker asserted that “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and called for its destruction, “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” This is the generation of young hardliners in Netanyahu's new government who support West Bank settlement construction and oppose ceding captured land to the Palestinians, as well as the creation of an independent Palestinian state, cornerstones of international proposals to end the conflict. And yet, when he recently met European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, Netanyahu renewed his commitment to a two-state solution after he had squashed the idea in his campaign pledge. It is doubtful that Mogherini was fooled by Netanyahu's about-face, not just because of his track record, but because of his new government which marks a shift to the right by giving increased prominence to Naftali Bennett's far-right Jewish Home, which opposes a Palestinian state and strongly backs settlement activity. Since Netanyahu has a slim one-seat majority in parliament, these officials, who include fervent supporters of settlements and opponents of Palestinian statehood, will no doubt complicate any attempt to revive peace talks. Mogherini has said future development of EU relations with Israel would depend on its engagement toward a lasting peace based on a two-state solution and that bilateral ties with Israel were directly linked to its actions with regard to the peace process, of which there is none and might not be any for years to come.
