Yuval Diskin, the former head of the Shin Bet security and intelligence service, has called for a freeze on “all construction in the settlements”.
Speaking at an event held to mark the 10th anniversary of the Geneva Initiative – an unofficial Middle-East peace plan, Diskin told the audience that “the implications of a lack of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are more existential than the Iranian nuclear programme”.
Israel’s government did not appear to be trying “ to change the trend regarding the settlement enterprise,” he said. “Our friends in the world are giving up on the prospect of a two-states-for-two-nations solution.”
Mr Diskin said that there was “tremendous frustration in the West Bank. The Palestinians feel that their state is being stolen from them. Soon the Palestinian masses will feel that there is no future, only a bad past.”
