In a Sunday interview with The Telegraph’s Tim Stanley, Israel’s Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely said the concept of a two-state solution is off the table. “It was rejected by the Palestinians again and again. Israelis had hope in the 1990s and were willing to compromise, but … every time there was some type of negotiation, there was more terrorism … So, Israelis are not willing to jeopardize their security any longer.”
De Israëlische ambassadeur Hotovely reageerde nadat Piers Morgan Israël ervan beschuldigde “bereid te zijn kinderen te doden” en beweerde dat Israël“faalt”.
Tzipi: Zelfs als we uw sympathie verliezen, moeten we winnen. En ik heb nog geen beter plan gehoord om Hamas te ontmantelen pic.twitter.com/5fLV2INdhY— Mariana_news✡????????????חי???? (@Marianasoux) May 31, 2025
Tzipora “Tzipi” Hotovely, 47, was born in Rehovot, to parents who made Aliyah from Soviet Georgia. She studied at the Bnei Akiva seminary in Tel Aviv and later enlisted in Israel’s National Service as a counselor at Rav Kook House and as a Jewish Agency emissary in Atlanta, American Georgia.
Hotovely was elected to the 18th Knesset as a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, becoming the youngest lawmaker in that House. She was appointed chairwoman of the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women, where she spearheaded key legislation, including a law extending maternity leave from 14 to 26 weeks and another banning the photography of sexual assault victims for media publication.
Politically, Hotovely has long advocated for extending Israeli law to Judea and Samaria and supports gradually granting Israeli citizenship to the Arab residents living there.
Stanley pointed out that this was a critical point, that many Britons don’t grasp. “Governments like Labour talk about the two-state solution as if it were genuinely on the table, but the two sides gave up on it years ago. In that case, what does the Israeli government see as the future of the Palestinian community?”
Hotovely argued that fundamental change in PA society requires a process of re-education. “It’s a good lesson to learn from the Second World War,” she said, pointing to postwar Germany and Japan as examples. “Fascism didn’t end in one day—there was a whole process of denazification, a whole process of rebuilding the institutions into a democratic country.” She added that when PA Arabs were given the opportunity to hold democratic elections in January 2006, “they ended up with an even worse dictatorship that doesn’t believe in any human rights.”
Hotovely suggested that if new elections were held in Gaza today, Hamas would likely win again—underscoring, in her view, the depth of the challenge. “We need to build the path not just for peace as a formal agreement, but for real peace—people to people—like the one we have with the Gulf countries through the Abraham Accords,” she said, referring to the normalization agreements brokered under President Donald Trump.
Amazing.
Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely was forced to flee London’s LSE university after students protested her presence and refused to give her a platform. This is how colonial war criminals must be treated everywhere. #FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/SuInl4tna0
— Hadi (@HadiNasrallah) November 9, 2021
Stanley inquired about the recent Israeli government’s announcement of establishing 22 new settlements across Judea and Samaria and suggested Israel must stop this move for the sake of peace.
“There’s a myth about settlements I never understood,” Hotovely says. “When Israel dismantled its settlements in Gaza in 2005 and withdrew completely, we didn’t see any improvement in the Palestinian attitude.”
According to her, when PA Arabs are asked what the core issue is, “they never say the settlements.” Instead, she says, they focus on the so-called right of return, which she interprets as “bringing people from all around the Arab world to move into small Israel.”
When Stanley suggested that they are primarily protesting Israeli settlements on land that even Israel officially recognizes as “Palestinian,” Hotovely firmly disagrees. “Definitely not. I think it’s clear for Israelis that when we speak about Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, we are speaking about historic Jewish land.”
According to Stanley, when Tzipi Hotovely was appointed Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom in 2020, segments of the British Jewish community voiced opposition, describing her as too polarizing for a post traditionally handled with diplomatic restraint. But for some, that may have been precisely the point. As many governments move from traditional diplomacy toward assertive advocacy, Hotovely has embodied this shift.
Since the October 7, 2023 attacks, she has emerged as a prominent and unflinching voice in the media and on university campuses, forcefully defending Israel’s actions and policies. She frequently characterizes the harshest criticisms of her country as “a blood libel”—not just against Israelis, but against Jews worldwide.
