Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday extended Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas an invitation to meet, reiterating an offer he made on Thursday after Abbas said that he would be willing to get together.
“I’ve cleared my schedule this week,” the prime minister told reporters. “Any day he can come, I’ll be here.” Abbas, however, has a long history of refusing to meet with Israeli leaders. He refused to meet with Netanyahu in 2009 despite American efforts to bring the two together. The Palestinian president instead opted to pursue unilateral attempts to gain statehood. The Palestinians joined the International Criminal Court on April 2015, and Abbas signed 15 international conventions on April 2014.
Netanyahu also said that he and Abbas have many things to discuss, “but the first item is ending the Palestinian campaign of incitement to murder Israelis.” The PA, led by Abbas, has refused to condemn the violence perpetrated against Israelis since the current wave of terrorism began in the fall of 2015. The attacks, which were triggered by incitement from the PA, Abbas’s Fatah Party, and other Palestinian leaders, have resulted in the deaths of 34 people and injured over 400.
One of the victims was the American military veteran Taylor Force, who served two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and died when he was stabbed in Jaffa by a Palestinian. Following the attack, the PA’s official TV news station called the terrorist who killed Force a “martyr.” On Twitter, Abbas’s Fatah Party hailed him as a “martyr” and a “hero.”
Palestinian leadership has also propagated the false rumor that Israel seeks to undermine the status quo at the Temple Mount, where the al-Aqsa Mosque is located. Palestinian attackers have indicated that they were inspired to act after hearing these lies. A Palestinian attacker recorded a video before stabbing an Israeli in November, saying, “On behalf of myself and the Palestinian people, I, Bara’a Issa, a son of Jerusalem, set out to defend the al-Aksa mosque and our holy land.” Abbas himself declared in September that Jews “have no right to defile” the al-Aqsa Mosque with their “filthy feet,” and that “each drop of blood that was spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood.”
While in Israel in early March, Vice President Joe Biden condemned the PA for failing to denounce terrorism. Two weeks later, at AIPAC’s annual Policy Conference, Biden recalled that in Israel “I condemned the failure to condemn those atrocious attacks of violence.”
The prime minister’s invitation to meet with Abbas is embedded below.
[Photo: IsraeliPM / YouTube ]