Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that he held a phone conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to thank the Palestinian leader for assisting Israel in battling the wildfires that raged across the country. Netanyahu said that he urged Abbas during their conversation to join him in extinguishing fires, rather than lighting them, and called him to march together toward a peaceful solution to the decades old conflict between the two peoples. “A few days ago I called Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and told him, this is the right thing to do and I appreciate it (Sending fire-trucks). Let’s not light fires, let us extinguish fires and march together toward peace. But you and I understand that peace can be reached, first of all, by the power of the state of Israel. Peace is made with the strong one, and the weak does not survive in our region,” said Netanyahu.
Prime Minister Netanyahu also took the opportunity to once again declare that there is no greater ally to the Jewish state within the International community than the United States of America; and reiterating his call on US President Barack Obama not to change Washington’s position in the United Nations security council during his remaining time in the Oval Office; emphasizing that peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
“I want to tell you, currently we are having a great international momentum, great, with the greatest powers in the world, with the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, but the headstone of our relationships is the strong alliance with the United States, which is founded on the growing support of the American people, of the American public with the state of Israel. We are full of appreciation and full of gratitude for this support. I never forget this, which is why I cherish and appreciate the deal we recently struck with the President of the US, Barack Obama and myself, signed a deal of defense support for the state of Israel. I expect that even at the end of his administration, President Obama will stand behind his statement from 2010, that the way to achieve peace doesn’t go through decisions in the Security Council, but through direct negotiations with the Palestinians as accordance with the US’s stance throughout the years,” added Netnyahu.
The comments by the Israeli leader come following reports that the US President Barack Obama is considering to act in the US Security Council to advance a framework for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after senior Israeli officials declared that “the era of a Palestinian state is over,” after the Republican Presidential nominee, Donald Trump, won the election – prompting a series of moves by far-right lawmakers, seeking to annex lands in the West Bank that the Palestinian leadership demand will be part of a Palestinian state under any final solution.