(Jpost).Amid the worst violence Israel has faced since he came to power two years ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu told Russian Journalists in Moscow Thursday that it was not clear whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas genuinely wanted to end the conflict with Israel.
"Abu Mazen [Abbas] speaks pace to the world, but domestically there is incitement and education toward hate,And who do they blame? The settlers. That is not the problem; The first thing that needs to be discussed is the root of the problem: that the Palestinians don't recognize our existence alongside them."
"It is nonsense to think that the major problem in the region was the construction of two homes on a street where 100 homes already exist...The settlement issue needs to be discussed and decisions made, But for that we need to sit and talk."
Regarding Abbas, Netanyahu said it was quite possible the person Israel wanted to make peace with today, could disappear tomorrow. The Prime Minister also said it was not clear with whom Israel was supposed to reach an agreement.
"The Palestinian population is divided into two, There are those who say openly they want to destroy Israel, and those who don' say that, but refuse to stand up against those who do say it."
"No doubt that the Palestinian leader spoke here about peace. . He did the same in Brazil, and also on Channel 1 on Israeli television. But on Palestinian television , and in the Palestinian textbooks, he is not prepared to say that...It is time to tell that man, 'enough'".
Referring to Wednesday's bomb attack in Jerusalem, Netanyahu told the Russian journalists that they know what terrorism is, because it has hit Russian theaters and airports.
"We are talking about the same irrational Islamic radicalism," he said. He then told a story of the 4th grade classmate of one of his sons who was killed a few years ago in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. On the same street where the family lived at the time -- Gaza Street – there were two attacks at around the same period, he said.
"I told my children, you are not leaving the house, They replied, 'what, we are not going to live normal lives.' And I said that the reality was not normal. Then we built the security barrier to prevent the terrorists from blowing themselves up in our cites, and the Palestinians took us to the court in The Hague claiming we were carrying out war crimes. That is the crazy hypocrisy of the world."
