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American Ambassador Friedman: The U.S. Has No Interest in Recognizing Any State that Glorifies Terrorism
(Israel Hayom) Ariel Kahana - U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said in an interview last week: "There are three categories of territory in Area C [of the West Bank]: There's the area that is populated by Jewish communities and sovereignty allows these communities to grow significantly. That's the majority - let's call that 97% of the population - and in those areas, there's no restriction on growth. For example, Ariel will be the same as Tel Aviv." "Category No. 2 is the half of Area C that will be reserved for the Palestinians [for four years], and there will be no building there - from either side - Israelis or Palestinians." "Then there's a third category, called the 'enclaves' or the 'bubbles.' This is 3%, the Jewish communities that are remote. And so, what happens to them is, Israel declares sovereignty over those communities, but they don't expand - they can expand up but they can't expand out. So as to the vast majority of settlements, the rules would be the same as in the Green Line." "The primary task belongs to the Israeli side because they're the ones that have to come up with what's best for the State of Israel. The overriding requirement [is] that the Israeli portion of Area C will not exceed 50% of Area C [which is] 30% of the West Bank....People on the Israeli side want to be ready to go July 1." "[Some] say they can't agree to a Palestinian state, because the Palestinian state will be a terrorist state that will continue to threaten Israel, will continue to incite, pay terrorists, [and] we can't live with them. I understand them, but [we are saying] you don't have to live with that Palestinian state, you have to live with the Palestinian state when the Palestinians become Canadians. And when the Palestinians become Canadians, all your issues should go away." "We are not going for the approach...[like] administrations in the past [that] were willing to overlook the risks of living side-by-side with the Palestinians....If they can't achieve those milestones in the plan, we...have no interest in recognizing any state...that's going to be a terrorist state or a theocracy or one that glorifies terrorism. We don't want it for us, let alone Israel."