PM Netanyahu comments on Palestinian incitement

We hope the Palestinian Authority decides to resume the talks and back away from terror and glorification of killers.

Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser, January 30, 2012.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the following remarks during his meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore today (Sunday), 29 January 2012:

“The only way to enter into a discussion is through direct negotiations. Israel wants to do just that. We have our disappointments. One of them occurred this week when the Palestinian Authority’s official television broadcasts a glorification of the killers who murdered an Israeli family, the Fogel Family. They murdered the three little children and the parents. And they were on official Palestinian television presented as martyrs and heroes.

This comes on the heels of the Palestinian Mufti’s call to murder Jews wherever they are. Also broadcast on official Palestinian Television. I think this is the wrong way to go. We demand a prompt condemnation; I hope you demand a condemnation because the only way to move to peace is to prepare our people for peace and not for brutal terror. We hope that these talks will continue. We’re prepared to continue these talks, we hope the Palestinian Authority decides to resume the talks and back away from terror and glorification of killers.”

PM Netanyahu earlier (23 January 2012): “A few days ago we heard very serious remarks by the Palestinian Mufti in Jerusalem. These remarks are especially serious both because they remind us of the statements of another mufti who called for the annihilation of the Jews, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, who was one of the architects of the Final Solution, and because they are being uttered today by people who are supposed to support the building of peace between us and our Palestinian neighbors.

The call to murder Jews simply because they are Jews is a terrible thing from an ethical point of view and is an obstacle to peace. Incitement in general is an obstacle to peace. What is especially serious is that as of today, not only has the Palestinian Authority neither condemned nor taken exception to the remarks, it enabled them to be broadcast on official Palestinian television. I expect senior PA officials to condemn this act. Those who want peace should not allow such incitement and calls to murder Jews.”