JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel's opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday a Palestinian state should only be created once the economy is strengthened, adding that this would be at the heart of his peace plan if he wins February elections.
"Economic development does not solve problems, it mitigates them and makes them more accessible for solution, and creates a stronger political base," .
He went on to say that his government would continue US-backed peace talks with the Palestinian Authority in an effort to reach "an agreement on agreeable issues."
Netanyahu rejected the current format of the peace process, saying he would not hand over the Palestinians occupied territories before strengthening the West Bank economy, fearing that radical Islamists backed by archfoe Iran would seize power there.
"Any area that we withdraw from will be taken over by Iran," Netanyahu said in a speech before the General Assembly of North American Jewish communities. "All we are doing is creating an additional base for militant Islam."
Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, where the Islamist Hamas movement violently ousted forces loyal to secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas less than two years later.
Netanyahu said that while continuing talks with moderate Palestinians, he would seek "to weave an economic peace alongside the political process" that "gives a stake in peace for the moderate elements in the Palestinian society."
The plan will include creating "thousands of jobs and the development of infrastructure" and the removal of Israeli roadblocks across the West Bank in order to allow Palestinian movement "without impeding Israeli society."
He would also seek to develop "three or four" joint Israeli-Palestinian economic projects along the West Bank border area with the support of Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel has peace agreements.
"This is a definite change I intend to introduce into the peace negotiations,".
