Former President Bill Clinton said he agrees that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “not the guy” for a peace deal.
Mr. Clinton is seen in a three-minute C-SPAN video speaking to an unidentified man at Sen. Tom Harkin’s Iowa steak fry on Sunday, Politico reported.
“Netanyahu himself said that he does not want peace. If we don’t force him to make peace, we will not have peace,” the man tells Mr. Clinton in the video.
“First of all, I agree with that,” the former president responded. “But in 2000, [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Barak, I got him to agree to something that I’m not sure I could have gotten [former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin to agree to, and Rabin was murdered for giving land to the Palestinians.”
“But Netanyahu is not the guy,” the man interjected.
“I agree with that,” Mr. Clinton responded, Politico reported. “But they would have gotten 96 percent of the West Bank, land swaps in Gaza, appropriate water rights and East Jerusalem — something that hasn’t even been discussed since I left office. And by the way, don’t forget, both [former Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat and [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas later tried to say they would take it. They said, ’We changed our minds, we want it now.’ But by then, they had a government that wouldn’t give it to them.”
Mr. Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, headlined Mr. Harkin’s 37th and final steak fry in Indianola.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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