Rejecting the stance of Arab leaders the status of Jerusalem should not be decided arbitrarily and unilaterally without negotiation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was "a great service for peace."
"President Trump made history by recognizing history, recognizing these indelible facts of the past and the present, and under any peace agreement, you know that the capital of Israel will continue to be Jerusalem and the seed of our government will continue to be in Jerusalem," Netanyahu told CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week.
"So, I think on the contrary, he did a great service for peace because peace can only be based on truth, on reality, and denying the simple fact Israel's capital is Jerusalem pushes peace backward by creating an illusion, fantasy. You can't build peace on fantasy. You can have a vision, but it has to be grounded in reality."
Netanyahu's praise of Trump's long-awaited enacting of the congressionally approved move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem – boldly breaking from world leaders in the United Nations – started with his version of Mideast history and current Israel policy.
"Where is my office, the prime minister's office, in Jerusalem? Where is that?" Netanyahu responded to Zakaria. "Right next to that is the supreme court, the real only independent supreme court in a radius in our turbulent region – where is that? in Jerusalem. The seed of government is in Jerusalem. This has been the case. Jerusalem is the capital of the jewish people since the time of King David. That's only 3,000 years ago."
Asked further by Zakaria if the U.S. and Israel's co-oped Jerusalem policy breaking from U.N. desires would force Palestinians to demand for a "one-state solution" in peace talks, Netanyahu demurred.
"I think it's a complete distortion," Netanyahu told Zakaria. "I don't think they mean it. They want to govern themselves, I don't have a problem with that. . . . The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves but none of the powers to threaten us, which means that in any political arrangement, Israel must retain the overriding security control in the tiny area west of the Jordan, from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, because otherwise you'll have Daesh, ISIS come in.
"That's the end of peace, the end of Palestinian authorities, and a powerful threat. I never mince words about that. Israel will retain the overriding security control but other than that, the Palestinians will be free to govern themselves. . . . We live in a complex world. We have failed states in the Middle East. We don't want another failed state and the key fundament of stability and success and peace is security. Israel will maintain it not for our benefit but for the benefit of the Palestinians."
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