Netanyahu Blasts 'Ethnic Cleansing' Goals of Israel's Opponents

JERUSALEM, Israel -- The U.S. State Department is expressing anger after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a YouTube video criticizing Israel's opponents.

In it he said that those who claim that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, a.k.a. the West Bank, are a stumbling block to peace are in effect calling for ethnic cleansing.

Netanyahu said he had always been "perplexed by this notion."

Watch Netanyahu's full video release below:

"Because no one would seriously claim that the nearly 2 million Arabs living inside Israel – that they're an obstacle to peace," Netanyahu said in the English video. "That's because they aren't. On the contrary, Israel's diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace."

"Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews. There's a phrase for that: It's called ethnic cleansing. And this demand is outrageous. It's even more outrageous that the world doesn't find this outrageous," he charged.

State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said using the terminology of "ethnic cleansing" for those who oppose Israeli communities in the West Bank is "inappropriate and unhelpful."

Trudeau added that the administration holds the same view as previous administrations and others in the international community that "the ongoing settlement activity is an obstacle to peace."

"We continue to call on both sides to demonstrate with actions and policies a genuine commitment to the two-state solution," Trudeau said.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in Jewish communities in what is often called the Biblical Heartland of Israel. In the Bible it's called Judea and Samaria and God promised it to the Jewish people as an eternal inheritance.

Palestinians want the West Bank for a future Palestinian state with no Jewish communities in it.

In his video, Netanyahu said he envisions a Middle East "where young Arabs and young Jews learn together, work together, live together side by side in peace."

He pointed out that the West Bank is the "ancestral homeland" of the Jewish people.

"Our region needs more tolerance, not less," Netanyahu said. "Ethnic cleansing for peace is absurd. It's about time somebody said it. I just did."