Netanyahu To Palestinians: Sit Down And Talk Already!

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu explained succinctly on Sunday why the negotiations with the PA have gone nowhere. He answered a question during the joint press conference he held with visiting Chilean President Sebastián Piñera.

The questioner asked about the lack of direct negotiations between Israel and the PA, implying that Israel could do more to get them going. Netanyahu answered as follows:

    Well, we've been calling for direct negotiations from day one of this government.

    On day one, we called for direct negotiations.

    On day two, I made a speech in Bar Ilan University calling for two states for two peoples. 

    On day three, we removed about 400 checkpoints, earth barriers, and other things to facilitate the growth of the Palestinian economy. 

    On day four, we agreed to a ten-month moratorium on new construction in the settlements, something that no government did for 18 years before that. 

    On day five, we agreed to an extension of that moratorium by three months.

    Unfortunately, everything that we did, these five things, were met with no response by the Palestinian Authority.  They just placed preconditions and terms, every way to avoid sitting down and discussing peace. They tried to go around the peace negotiations. 

    I'll tell you why: It's because peace is hard. It's been hard for me. It will be hard. You have to make concessions and you have to look at the people in the eye and tell them not everything that we'd hoped for would be possible; there have to be compromises on both sides. 

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