Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for suggesting that a Palestinian state could be established on Saudi Arabia's territory.
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Sunday that the thinking behind Netanyahu's remarks "is unacceptable and reflects a complete detachment from reality", adding that such ideas "are nothing more than mere fantasies or illusions".
The Saudi foreign ministry stressed its "categorical rejection of such statements that aim to divert attention from the continuous crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian brothers in Gaza".
A ministry statement welcomed "the condemnation, disapproval and total rejection announced by the brotherly countries towards what Benjamin Netanyahu stated regarding the displacement of the Palestinian people".
Netanyahu's remarks, which some Israeli media characterised as a joke, came with the region already on edge after US President Donald Trump proposed taking over the Palestinian territory, effectively displacing the people of Gaza.
'Plenty of territory'
In a televised interview with Netanyahu on Thursday, right-wing Israeli journalist Yaakov Bardugo brought up the potential for diplomatic normalisation with Saudi Arabia when he seemed to misspeak, attributing to Riyadh the position that there would be "no progress without a Saudi state."
"Palestinian state?" Netanyahu asked to correct him, adding: "Unless you want the Palestinian state to be in Saudi Arabia ... They (the Saudis) have plenty of territory."
The Israeli premier went on to describe the talks leading up to the so-called Abraham Accords, in which several Arab countries normalised ties with Israel, concluding: "I think we should allow this process to take its course."
But the suggestion of a state for Palestinians outside of Gaza and the occupied West Bank prompted an outpouring of regional condemnation, including from Qatar, Egypt and the Palestinian foreign ministry, which described the remarks as "racist".
Violation of international law
Jordan's foreign ministry condemned them as "inflammatory and a clear violation of international law", stressing that the Palestinians have the "right to establish an independent, sovereign state" alongside Israel.
The foreign ministry of the United Arab Emirates issued a statement denouncing Netanyahu's comments as "reprehensible and provocative," calling them "a blatant violation of international law and the United Nations charter."
For Palestinians, any attempt to force them out of Gaza would evoke dark memories of the "Nakba," or catastrophe, outlining the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel's creation in 1948.
In its statement, Saudi Arabia said, "this extremist, occupying mentality does not understand what the Palestinian land means" to Palestinians.
Such a mindset, it added, refuses the Palestinian people's rights "to live in the first place, as it has completely destroyed Gaza" and killed tens of thousands "without the slightest human feeling or moral responsibility".
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