Where's Abbas?

Speaking on the ABC network's "Good Morning America" program, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sidestepped questions about whether he would extend the construction freeze, and repeated numerous times that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas must agree to face-to-face talks with Israel. He also provided Israel's nationalist camp with reason for concern.

Interviewer George Stephanopoulos began the talk by noting the very warm and friendly reception Mr. and Mrs. Netanyahu received from U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife. He then asked, "What concrete steps are you prepared to take" to advance the peace process with the Palestinian Authority?

"... The main thing that came out of these very good discussions I had with the President," Netanyahu said, "is that we want to advance peace. And the simplest way to advance peace is to put aside all the grievances and all the preconditions and all the excuses that have been put up to prevent me and President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority from sitting down."

Netanyahu reiterated that he's "ready to sit down with him in Jerusalem, in Ramallah - that's 10 minutes away from my office - to discuss peace without preconditions. And if we do it, we can defy the world."

He implied that there could be "additional easing of movements" and economic projects – "but what we want to see finally is one thing. We want President Abbas to grasp my hand, get into a room, shake it, sit down and negotiate a final settlement of peace between Israel and the Palestinians."

Netanyahu repeated several more times his seemingly innocuous hope that Abbas would agree to direct talks, and added his insistence on "very strong security arrangements so that the areas that we vacate do not turn into Iranian strongholds for flying rockets and sending terrorists against us," as has occurred in Gaza and Lebanon.

More>>