Eisenkot, whose new Yashar party now leads or ties Likud in the polls, put it plainly: "I have never spoken about a Palestinian state." He would refuse Palestinian statehood even if it cost Israel normalization with Saudi Arabia. "I will not allow a Palestinian state to be established, and I will not hand over territory. It is the denial of Palestinian statehood that is destroying Israel from within. The misfortune is not that Netanyahu peddled this lie; it is that his challengers now recite it.