Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett has said that the idea of a Palestinian state was at a "dead end", prompting the Palestinians to accuse him of sounding the death knell of a two-state solution.
Bennett's comments are entirely in line with those that he espoused during January's election campaign but his reiteration of them as minister comes as Washington steps up efforts to revive the troubled peace process.
"The idea that a Palestinian state will be founded within the Land of Israel has reached a dead end," said Bennett yesterday, using the biblical term for a greater Israel encompassing the occupied West Bank.
"Never, in the history of Israel, have so many people put so much energy into something so pointless," he said during a meeting of Jewish settlement leaders, in remarks carried by public radio.
"The most important thing for the Land of Israel is to build, and build, and build," said Bennett, who heads the hardline nationalist Jewish Home party.
He added that central to the problem was the reluctance of Israel's leadership to simply insist that the West Bank belongs to "the people of Israel".
"There was never a Palestinian state here, and we were never occupiers, this is our home," said Bennett.
Bennett, who is a past chairman of the settlement leaders' council he was addressing, has consistently opposed the two-state solution backed by key Israeli ally Washington and the rest of the international community.
He says he opted to join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition -- whose platform includes a declared aspiration to reach an agreement leading to a Palestinian state because he believed the goal was not realistic.
Bennett's remarks come after Deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon, a member of Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party, denied in an interview earlier this month that the government was serious about reaching a peace agreement that would lead to a two-state solution.
And last week, deputy minister Ofir Akunis told public radio the Palestinians "were not ready for a state".
Following Danon's interview, Netanyahu last Sunday reiterated his commitment to a Palestinian state, saying he and US Secretary of State John Kerry will "try to make progress to find the opening for negotiations with the Palestinians, with the goal of reaching an agreement".
