Minister Gideon Sa'ar at the conference
Minister Gideon Sa'ar at the conferenceSpokesperson

Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a member of the Political-Security Cabinet, participated on Wednesday in a conference in Berlin, hosted by WELT and The Jerusalem Post, which discussed the challenges and obstacles that have arisen in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack and the war which followed.

Sa’ar said in his remarks that a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state will not solve the conflict but rather perpetuate it.

“This conflict will be solved only by direct negotiations. Rather, it’s a process where Palestinians won’t have to pay the price of compromise but will continue the conflict with Israel from an improved position of a state, which inherently undermines Israel’s ability to defend itself without them relinquishing any of their extreme demands: the return of ‘refugees’ and ‘Palestine – from the river to the sea.’ Such a move will perpetuate the conflict instead of resolving it,” Sa’ar said.

He added that he is opposed to a two-state solution in general because “a Palestinian state will be a Hamas state that will destabilize the region and continue, alongside its extreme Islamist partners, efforts to achieve their goal: the destruction of Israel.”

Commenting on the rising antisemitism around the world, Sa’ar said, “Today, it is abundantly clear that the new antisemitism is against the state of the Jewish people. Classical antisemitism delegitimized and dehumanized Jews. The new antisemitism does the very same thing to their state. The calling card of today’s antisemitism is the delegitimization of Israel and the denial of its right to self-defense.”

He added that the current war is a “multi-front jihadist onslaught” that is “military, ideological, political, and legal combined.”

Sa’ar concluded by calling “on every leader, on every freedom-loving nation and person: Exert all political pressure to help release the 134 hostages who are still held in Gaza in an inhumane manner.”