Senior Likud official and Netanyahu ally says Prime Minister no longer believes in two-state solution laid out in 2009 Bar Ilan address.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu no longer supports the two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, a senior Likud minister and ally to the Prime Minister said Monday morning.

Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, who formerly served as the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office under Netanyahu, said that neither he nor Netanyahu support the two-state solution and establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.

“I never backed the two-state solution, [I] only [supported] the Bar Ilan speech,” Hanegbi told Army Radio Monday morning, referencing Netanyahu’s 2009 address at Bar Ilan University, in which the Prime Minister embraced the idea of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Hanegbi added that Netanyahu himself had dropped his support for Palestinian statehood since the 2009 speech.

“The Prime Minister as well no longer supports the two-state [solution],” said Hanegbi.

In 2015, Netanyahu said that while he had not abandoned his positions laid out in the Bar Ilan address, “the Palestinians have emptied it of content. Under the conditions they want at present, it is simply not something we can consider. There is no partner for an agreement.”