Netanyahu says no Palestinian state if he wins another term

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told an Israeli news website Monday that if he is elected in Tuesday's national elections, "there will be no Palestinian state."

"I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory, gives territory away to radical Islamist attacks against Israel," Netanyahu told the NRG website.

Asked directly whether no Palestinian state would be created under his leadership, the prime minister answered "Indeed."

Netanyahu is trying to get more votes from far-right Israeli voters at the expense of the nationalistic Jewish Home party, as polls from last week have shown the center-left Zionist Union list gaining a four-seat lead on the Likud, in the upcoming elections.

The statement contradicts his 2009 Bar-Ilan speech, in which he expressed his support to a two-state solution to end the conflict with the Palestinians.

In the famous speech, which came under pressure from the U.S. administration, Netanyahu said that if Israel receives a guarantee for security arrangements and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish people's state, there is room for a future peace deal to end the conflict via a two-state solution.

Netanyahu also criticized the left, saying they "have buried its head in the sand time and time again and ignore this, but we are realistic and we understand."

He said that if heads of the Zionist Union list Isaac Herzog (Labor) and Tzipi Livni (Hatnua) win the elections, they would freeze construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem settlements and take orders from the international community.

Earlier on Monday, during a campaign trail in the east Jerusalem Jewish settlement of Har Homa, Netanyahu told reporters that if he is reelected he would build thousands of housing units in east Jerusalem, adding he and members of the Likud party will make sure Jerusalem "stayed united."

Political pundits in Israel believe Netanyahu realized he would not manage to get votes from the center-right voters, who left the Likud for Kulanu ("all of us" in Hebrew).

Therefore, Netanyahu is making a last-minute battle to gain votes from the hardcore right, who might have left the Likud for the Jewish Home.

On Sunday, Netanyahu made a speech at a rally in Tel Aviv organized by the settler movement, supporting the Likud and the Jewish home parties, following a left-wing rally, which took place at the same location a week before.

Whereas last week over 40,000 Israelis attended the center-left rally, around 15,000 people took part of Sunday's rally.

The Palestinians aim to establish a state within lands Israel occupied in the West Bank and Gaza and annexed in east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast War.

Israel and the Palestinians negotiated between July 2013 and April 2014 in the recent round of U.S.-mediated talks, but talks came to a dead end. Endit