{"id":152281,"date":"2025-09-22T02:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T02:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/152281\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T02:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T02:40:07","slug":"netanyahu-calls-uks-palestine-recognition-absurd-prize-for-terrorism-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/152281\/","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu calls UK\u2019s Palestine recognition \u2018absurd prize for terrorism\u2019 | Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s prime minister, called the UK\u2019s recognition of Palestine<\/a> on Sunday \u201can absurd prize for terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n

In remarks to ministers released by his office, he said Israel<\/a> would have \u201cto 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\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a post on X<\/a>, Israel\u2019s foreign ministry wrote that the UK recognising Palestine as a state was \u201cnothing but a reward for jihadist Hamas\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHamas leaders themselves openly admit: this recognition is a direct outcome, the \u2018fruit\u2019 for the October 7 massacre. Don\u2019t let Jihadist ideology dictate your policy,\u201d the post read.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials have been making this argument in recent weeks as they sought to head off the growing momentum in the UK, France, Canada, Portugal and others towards recognition.<\/p>\n

Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu, said Hamas could now say to the Palestinians that without its 2023 attack, which killed about 1,200, the recognition of Palestine by the UK and others would not have happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be understood as a reward to them, and Starmer has lost any leverage that he had \u2026 and [a Palestinian state] is not going to happen anyway,\u201d said Amidror, an analyst at the conservative Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael 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 \u2026 There is a gap here that cannot be bridged with nice words.\u201d<\/p>\n

But successive opinion polls in Israel have shown strong demand for a negotiated end to the conflict in Gaza. Support for Netanyahu\u2019s coalition government, the most rightwing in Israel\u2019s history, has declined further<\/a> since the prime minister called last week on Israelis to accept the country\u2019s growing international isolation and become a \u201csuper-Sparta\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands demonstrated in Israel at the weekend against the government and for a deal that would bring back the Israeli hostages seized during the 2023 raid and held since by Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Protesters in Jerusalem on Sunday hold pictures of hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the 7 October 2023 attack and still being held. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun\/Reuters<\/p>\n

A coalition of groups representing the hostages\u2019 families said on Sunday it condemned \u201cvarious nations\u2019 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\u201d.<\/p>\n

The leader of the opposition Democrats party, Yair Golan, said the recognition by the UK was a grave political failure by Netanyahu and his far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a direct result of Netanyahu\u2019s political recklessness: refusal to end the war and the dangerous choice of occupation and annexation,\u201d Golan said<\/a>. \u201cThe issue of a demilitarised Palestinian state can and should be part of a broad regional arrangement led by Israel that guarantees our security interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

A question now is how Israel responds. Analysts in Israel suggest that Netanyahu will make a decision only after his forthcoming trip to Washington at the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, called for wholesale annexation of the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe days when Britain and other countries would determine our future are over \u2026 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,\u201d Smotrich said on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s prime minister, called the UK\u2019s recognition of Palestine on Sunday \u201can absurd prize for terrorism\u201d.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-152281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}