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Pres. Obama blames PM Netanyahu of advancing policy that threatens a two state solution

US President Barack Obama, in an exclusive interview he gave to Israel’s Uvdah magazine with Ilana Dayan, the outgoing American President accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of advancing a policy that backs settlements on lands that the Palestinians want for their future state, making a two state solution an unviable option. “Bibi says that he believes in the two-state solution and yet his actions consistently have shown that if he is getting pressured to approve more settlements he will do so regardless of what he says about the importance of the two-state solution. And what we have seen since 2009, since I was elected, was an increase of 37 percent — we have gone from 300,000 to 400,000. These are not compelled by the necessities of Israel’s security or strategic depth. And moreover, you now are seeing, this year alone, over 1,000 Palestinian structures that were demolished. Increasingly what you are seeing is that the facts on the ground are making it almost impossible, at least very difficult, and if this trendline continues – impossible, to create a contiguous functioning Palestinian state. And if that’s the case then what you are embracing now is a vision of greater Israel in which an occupation continues indefinitely,” said Obama.

President Barack Obama who leaves office on the 20th of January, said that in the past few years both he and US Secretary of State John Kerry had “countless times” personally appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop settlement activity, but that those please were ignored. Israel expects to receive a more favorable treatment from Obama’s successor, President-elect Donald Trump. Trump has on several occasions denounced the Obama administration’s policy toward Israel and has vowed to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He has also named a US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who has for years raised money for Jewish settlements and openly proclaims all areas of the West Bank as the biblical heritage of the Jewish people.