Israel could support a Palestinian state before September under the right conditions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Thursday.
Addressing a Palestinian plan to bring the issue of an independent Palestinian state forward at the United Nations General Assembly in September, Netanyahu said many things could be passed by the UN.
“They could say that Bin Laden is the hero of mankind and pass that too…" Netanyahu said. "But the leading countries, like the US, and now Britain and France all say they expect those who want peace with Israel need to recognize Israel. This is elementary.”
The prime minister warned against a Palestinian state that would try to perpetuate conflict with Israel saying "the idea is not to establish a Palestinian state to continue the conflict as Hamas wants – but to establish state so as to end conflict. What they want now is to form a state so as to continue trying to destroy us and pursuing the war on terror.”
Speaking about his meeting with Sarkozy, Netanyahu said the conversation had been “far reaching and friendly.”
“I heard clear things from President Sarkozy, which is that anyone who wants to have peace with Israel has to announce clearly that they are ready for peace and not terror,” Netanyahu said.
“I don’t want to talk about the details of the talks…but the main principle is that whoever wants peace with Israel has to accept Israel as the national state of the Jews. That is the most simple and true thing,” Netanyahu said.
“The expectation we have, and any fair minded person would have, is that we ask of anyone who says they want peace with Israel to abandon the goal of destroying Israel. We can make peace with an enemy but only an enemy who wants peace,” Netanyahu stressed.
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