PM says waiting for 'Palestinian Ben-Gurion' to end Mideast conflict
On Kristallnacht anniversary, PM blasts Palestinians for Nazi references.
By HERB KEINONNetanyahu making fist looking at camera 370(photo credit: Koby Gidon/GPO)
A Palestinian David Ben-Gurion needs to arise who will declare an end to the conflict, recognize Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, and educate his people toward peace, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.The prime minister, speaking at the annual memorial service in Sde Boker for Ben-Gurion and his wife, Paula, said the speech of reconciliation he was waiting to hear from a Palestinian leader needed to be delivered in Arabic, to the Palestinian people, and not in side comments made to foreign leaders.Netanyahu, speaking three days after US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Israel would face increased international isolation and de-legitimization if the current talks with the Palestinians broke down, said that Israel would be uncompromising on its vital interests.There is compromise in every negotiations, and there will be compromises in this one as well, Netanyahu said, but the compromises needed to be mutual.Israel was negotiating reasonably and in good faith, but will refuse to give and not get anything in return, he said.“We are giving and taking, in fair measure to the reciprocity that the other side demonstrates,” he said.Furthermore, he said, in an apparent reference to Jerusalem and an IDF presence on the Jordan River, “there are things we cannot compromise on because they are pillars upon which we stand.”Earlier in the day, at the opening of a special cabinet meeting held in Sde Boker, Netanyahu said that peace would not be achieved by “international pressure on Israel.”He noted that Sunday was 75 years since Kristallnacht.“It is very disturbing that precisely now we are witness to the phenomenon of swastikas and Nazi-style salutes on Palestinian networks,” Netanyahu said, referring to an incident last month when a Nazi flag was hoisted near Beit Umar in the West Bank between Halhoul and Gush Etzion, and to a military-style parade at Al-Quds University last week organized by the Islamic Jihad faction where students gave Hitler-style salutes.
“This is a direct result of the continued wild incitement against the State of Israel,” the prime minister said. “This is not the way to achieve peace. Neither will peace be achieved by international pressure on Israel. No pressure will lead us to abandon our vital interests. An agreement will be achieved only when Israel receives an appropriate response regarding its vital interests, especially security, but also others which are part of our heritage and part of our future.”Kerry said in an interview on Thursday that the alternative to “getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos,” and then asked, “I mean, does Israel want a third intifada? “I believe that if we do not resolve the issues between Palestinians and Israelis, if we do not find a way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel, there will be an increasing campaign of de-legitimization of Israel that’s been taking place in an international basis,” he said.
