'Absurd prize for terrorism': Netanyahu slams UK for recognising Palestinian state

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed his British counterpart after the United Kingdom formally recognised the Palestinian state. The Israeli premier said on Sunday that the recognition of the Palestinian state by European nations is “an absurd prize for terrorism”.

“To fight both in the UN and in all the other fronts against the slanderous propaganda aimed at us, and against the calls to create a Palestinian state that will endanger our existence and constitute an absurd prize for terrorism," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to condemn Starmer’s latest announcement. In the post, Sa’ar insisted that the UK recognising Palestine as a state was “nothing but a reward for jihadist Hamas”. “Hamas leaders themselves openly admit: this recognition is a direct outcome, the ‘fruit’ for the October 7 massacre. Don’t let Jihadist ideology dictate your policy,” the post read.

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Israeli officials have been making all sorts of arguments in recent weeks as they sought to counter the growing momentum in the UK, France, Canada, Portugal and others towards recognition. Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu, with the latest announcements by the European nations, Hamas could now say to the Palestinians that without its 2023 attack, which killed about 1,200 Israelis, the recognition of Palestine by the UK and others would not have happened.

‘Reward for Hamas’

In his statement, Amidror argued that the move is now being seen as a ‘reward for Hamas’. “It will be understood as a reward to them, and Starmer has lost any leverage that he had … and [a Palestinian state] is not going to happen anyway,” said Amidror, an analyst at the conservative Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America in Washington.

“Israel is determined to destroy the terrorist organisation that is called Hamas. Some of our friends around the world have decided that Hamas should survive and Israel should leave the Gaza Strip, taking our hostages … There is a gap here that cannot be bridged with nice words," he added.

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Despite all these arguments pushed by the Israeli government, successive opinion polls in the country have shown strong demand for a negotiated end to the conflict in Gaza. Support for Netanyahu and his coalition government, which is seen as the most right-wing in Israel’s history, has declined significantly since the Israeli military’s extensive operation in Gaza.

Families of hostages are not happy with Europe

Meanwhile, coalition groups representing the families of hostages said on Sunday that they condemned “various nations’ unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state while turning a blind eye to the fact that 48 hostages remain in Hamas captivity following the October 7th massacre”.

The leader of Israel’s opposition Democratic Party, Yair Golan, said that the recognition by the UK was a grave political failure by Netanyahu and his far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich. “This is a direct result of Netanyahu’s political recklessness: refusal to end the war and the dangerous choice of occupation and annexation,” Golan said. “The issue of a demilitarised Palestinian state can and should be part of a broad regional arrangement led by Israel that guarantees our security interests.”

The UK’s move also drew criticism from Israel’s far-right. Both Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, went on to call for wholesale annexation of the occupied West Bank. “The days when Britain and other countries would determine our future are over … The only response to this anti-Israeli move is sovereignty over the historic homeland of the Jewish people in Judea and Samaria, and permanently removing the folly of a Palestinian state from the agenda,” Smotrich said on X.