MK Yoni Chetboun
MK Yoni ChetbounIsrael news photo: Flash 90

MK Yoni Chetboun (Bayit Yehudi) said Sunday that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry apparently does not believe in the two-state solution he himself is trying to advance.

“There is an obsession on the verge of lunacy around the idea of two states, and many people follow the idea like prisoners of war,” Chetboun told Arutz Sheva. The left, he maintained, has succeeded in changing public discourse so that the idea of a Palestinian state, once taboo outside of far left circles, is now touted even by parts of the right.

However, he said, “the public is more Zionist than its representatives in the Knesset.”

Chetboun said that most Palestinians prefer to emigrate to Jordan or live under Israeli rule, rather than remaining under their current corrupt leadership. He advocated applying Israeli sovereignty to Areas C in Judea and Samaria, while gradually granting rights to the Arabs who live there. Eventually, he predicted, some of these Arabs will opt for Israeli citizenship and agree to declare loyalty to the Jewish state, others will choose resident status like the Arabs of eastern Jerusalem, and others will emigrate to Jordan.

Regarding Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's position favoring a Palestinian state, Chetboun said that he would like to believe that Netanyahu will rethink this policy, because of the influence of the cultural and political environment he was raised in, and thanks to the activity of the Bayit Yehudi faction.