Bill Clinton Tells Israel To 'Get Real' About Palestine

Bill Clinton did not parse words with Israeli leaders on Monday night.

The former United States president attended a celebration for Israeli President Shimon Peres' 90 birthday at the Peres Academic Center in Rehovot yesterday, where he told Israeli politicians to "get real" about Palestine.

"The question [to] confront is, is it really okay with you if Israel has people in its territory that will never be allowed to vote?" Bill Clinton asked, in response to comments made by Israeli Minister for the Economy Naftali Bennett, who said that any possibility of a two-state solution was out of the question.

"If so, can you say with a straight face that this is a democracy?" Clinton continued. "If you let them vote, can you live with not being a Jewish state?"

Bennett had previously dashed the notion that Israel would annex most of the West Bank and open the doors to a Palestinian free state, according to The Australian.

"The idea a Palestinian state will be formed in the state of Israel has come to a dead end," Bennett said. "Never was so much time invested in something so pointless. The attempt to establish a Palestinian state is over, this idea is behind us. We have to make a transition from a situation of persuading people that a Palestinian state is inappropriate to thinking about how to conduct ourselves in the future."

But Bill Clinton stressed that there was an existential question at hand to answer, pushing Israelis to agree to the two-state solution, the Washington Times reported.

"Things are going to hell in a hand basket all around you," Clinton said. "[But] your neighbors are still your neighbors...You have a better chance if you are driven by a vision of peace and reconciliation."

These comments come in the midst of Israel's plans to build more than 1,000 new apartment complexes in two contested areas of East Jerusalem, in what some are calling a part of the "ethnic cleansing movement" to get rid of Palestinians in the state.

Due to pushes from lawmakers and politicians in the United States, Israel has paused its construction on the housing complexes for the time being, according to the Daily Star.