Tuesday, March 22, 2011

PM Netanyahu: PA must choose between peace with Israel or with Hamas

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset plenum that the Palestinian Authority needs to choose between peace with Hamas and peace with Israel.
"How can you talk to us about peace when you're talking about peace with Hamas,You can choose [to make] peace with Israel or you can choose peace with Hamas."
Netanyahu also continued his criticism of the Palestinian Authority's incitement against Israel and honoring of terrorists.
“How can you talk to us about peace when the state of Israel doesn’t exist in your text books? How can you talk about peace to us while you speak about making peace with Hamas? You can make peace with Hamas, or make peace with Israel, but you can’t do both. I say to our Palestinian counterparts, choose peace. If you want to pick peace, you must do the most basic thing that you don’t do. You don’t prepare your people for peace".
“Why don’t you come to do the most basic thing? Abbas is in Ramallah 10 minutes away from here, and flies across the world, but he won’t come here,” Netanyahu complained.
Netanyahu also addressed the criticism he has received for approving several hundred housing units in the West Bank immediately following the terror attack in Itamar. He said the building permits were not punishment for the murders, but were Zionism's answer to them. "There has been a great deal of building that was done as an answer to killing" in the past, he said."

He listed several cities, moshavim and kibbutzim that were established after similar massacres of Jews in the state's early years. One example he presented was Kiryat Shmona, which was named after the eight people killed in the battle of Tel Hai.
"Terror will not determine the map of the settlements, The Palestinians want to remove us from every place [in Israel], the decision to respond to the murders with building was not done instead of finding the murderers, but in addition to it".
Addressing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' condemnation of the Itamar murders on Israel Radio, Netanyahu reiterated his previous demand that Abbas "needs to say those things to the Palestinian media, and to say them there every time that [an attack] happens."

Netanyahu slammed claims by the opposition that they were close to a peace deal with the Palestinians, saying "Palestinians are not ready for peace with Israel."
"According to Palestinian publications, they demand the dismantling of Har Homa, Ariel, and Ma'ale Adumim. I assume that you in Kadima are against this. If you are against this, I want to know, where was the agreement?"
"I heard from the opposition chair a stance that I completely agree with: not one refugee. So they agreed to this? They were so close?"
“You are blurring reality, and the time has come that you tell the truth – if not to the nation, then at least to yourselves,” he concluded.