ISRAELI PRIME minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the reason there is no peace in the Middle East is because the Palestinians refuse to recognise Israel as a Jewish state.
Addressing the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, a day after violent clashes on Israel’s borders as Palestinians marked Nakba day, the anniversary of Israel’s founding, Mr Netanyahu said “thousands tried to invade our territory and undermine our sovereignty.”
Alluding to the word nakba, or catastrophe, he said, “the real catastrophe of the Palestinian people is that they haven’t had a leadership that is willing to make a true historic compromise between the Palestinian and Jewish people.” He said a Palestinian government containing elements committed to Israel’s destruction cannot be a partner for peace.
Later this week Mr Netanyahu travels to Washington where he will meet US president Barak Obama and address Congress. However, there was little in his speech to indicate that he will be coming with new ideas to break the impasse.
He said Israel must stop blaming itself for the failure of Middle East peace efforts and look at the reality with open eyes. “We need to call a spade a spade: there is no peace because the Palestinians refuse to recognise the state of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.” Opposition leader Tzipi Livni accused the prime minister of travelling to the United States without a vision or a plan of action.
Earlier, Israel transferred €74 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA) after a wave of international criticism over the decision this month to suspend the transfer of tax revenues collected by Israel for the Palestinians.
The US, the EU and the UN had condemned the Israeli move, which came in response to the reconciliation pact signed between Fatah and Hamas, saying the money belonged to the Palestinians.
The PA was unable to pay civil service salaries this month due to the Israeli move. PA spokesman Ghassan Khatib said that Israel’s U-turn was proof of “the success of the Palestinian campaign on an international level, which pressured Israel to transfer these funds.” Israeli finance minister Yuval Steinitz warned that Israel would again suspend the cash transfers if Hamas joined the Palestinian government. “For the last two weeks, we gave the PA a yellow card, but we decided to renew the revenue transfers after we got confirmation from the Palestinians that no money will be transferred to Hamas or to terrorist operations.”
Fatah and Hamas representatives met yesterday in Cairo in an effort to finalise the reconciliation agreement, such as the makeup of the interim government, which will rule until elections are held next year, and who will be the prime minister. The two sides also addressed the mutual release of prisoners and unifying Palestinian institutions in the West Bank, which is controlled by Fatah headed by PA president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas-run Gaza.