Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely. Photo: Screenshot.

The blame for the lack of opportunities for everyday Palestinians should be placed on their own leaders, not Israel, the Jewish state’s deputy foreign minister said in a television interview that aired on Sunday in Australia.

“They choose again and again leadership that doesn’t put their positive future next to their eyes,” Tzipi Hotovely — a member of the ruling Likud Party — told Liam Bartlett of Nine Network’s “60 Minutes” program. “They put the denial of Israel as the first issue on the agenda.”

Palestinian leaders do not give their people “the ability to live under democratic values,” Hotovely went on to say. “I mean, you can’t deny that.”

“You can’t deny the fact that the Palestinian leadership, since the beginning of the Palestinian Authority, never spoke about democratic values as part of the future of Palestinian society,” she added.

Watch an excerpt from the interview below: