Netanyahu calls Swedish PM to protest ‘extra-judicial’ killing comments by

Israel’s prime minister insisted on Sunday that his country is not heading toward becoming a binational state, rejecting a warning by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

“Israel will not be a binational state”, Netanyahu said at the opening of his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.

Mr Kerry had cautioned against calls from some Israeli politicians to let the Palestinian Authority wither, calling them counterproductive and self-defeating for Israel.

And another 72 Palestinians, said by Israel to have been attackers, have been killed. The authors – economist Avner Halevi and Gilead Sher, a former chief negotiator with the Palestinians – said this would require removing about 100,000 settlers, while others living close to Israel’s de facto border would remain pending a future negotiation.

Kerry told a conference on Israeli affairs in Washington on Saturday that through its continued occupation of the West Bank, Israel could make it impossible to partition the land between Jewish and Palestinian states. “It will not happen and we will continue to protect the lives of Israelis”.

Also on Sunday, Israeli police said a Palestinian stabbed several Israelis before he was shot and killed, the latest incident in more than two months of attacks. It came after a scorching speech to the forum the previous evening by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warning that Israel’s settlement policies were leading toward a one-state outcome.

He also lamented the fact that Israel continues to approve new construction in Jewish settlements in areas that the Palestinians claim as part of a future state, while denying construction permits for Palestinian projects on territory that would be subject to negotiation in an eventual peace deal.

The PA has repeatedly blamed Israel for the lack of peace talks, which were suspended after an attempt to form a unity government between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and resistance movement Hamas – the two Palestinian factions that respectively govern the occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Kerry noted during the recent trip that Abbas had told him the level of Palestinian despair about the future was unprecedented.

19 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings and shootings.

The villagers rushed to collect the body, apparently anxious that the Israeli army would seize it and refuse to return it to the families, an AFP journalist on site reported. “She was referring to both sides”. “That’s the problem today”.

Wallstrom said she was against the stabbing attacks.