Netanyahu demands Abbas, PA condemn West Bank murder

The bulk of Netanyahus speech on Thursday focused on his condemnation of the nuclear deal with Iran, but he also took turns at accusing the United Nations of repeatedly bashing his country.

“That represents a psychological transition [for him]”, Miller said.

To supporters of Israel and many others, it was a remarkably powerful moment, showing how the world was ignoring the risks posed by a nuclear deal with Iran.

The constraints are in effect for 10 to 15 years, and Netanyahu argued that once they are lifted, Iran would be only “weeks away from having the fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs”. “That just doesn’t make any sense”. However, judging from the response, much of the audience has already accepted the Iran deal and moved on. Through releasing billions of dollars in sanctions relief to Iran, he said, “it makes war more likely”. “But one of history’s most important yet least learned lessons is this: The best intentions don’t prevent the worst outcomes”.

In his comments on Iran on Thursday, for the first time that close Middle East watchers could remember, Netanyahu uttered a sentence that was not uniformly critical of the Iran nuclear pact. I hope he changes his mind.

“Any path going forward requires one thing: You have to fight terror”, Netanyahu said, reiterating his complaints about Palestinian incitement and praise for violence. He did not give up and surrender to others who are much more powerful.

Following weighty references to the Holocaust and Iran’s threats against Israel, Netanyahu’s silence had been meant to hammer home a point.

But toward the end, he responded to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ United Nations speech on Wednesday, in which Abbas said recent Israeli security actions at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem could ignite a religious war.[ID:nL1N12023V].

“We need new leadership that will make the concessions necessary [for peace]”, he added. The topic, on which the two leaders have starkly divergent approaches, has been a source of friction longer than the Iran deal has been, and the Israeli leader and his White House outreach only benefits from it being consigned to the back burner.

A USA administration official said that Abbas had reaffirmed his commitment to a two-state solution, an aim shared by the United States.

“He has 100 percent justification for his complaints”, said Sneh.

He even reached out to Democrats, who blocked Republican attempts to kill the Iran deal and who remain furious that Netanyahu used an address to Congress earlier this year to openly criticize the President during the premier’s re-election bid.

Sneh said Abbas’ speech “reflected his frustration and isolation”.

The country deployed hundreds of troops and dozens of artillery units, personnel carriers, and aircrafts in the past week, mostly situated around the stronghold of Assad’s forces in the northwestern Syrian region of Latakia, to the dismay of the worldwide community.

He agreed with Ben-Meir that a majority of the current Israeli government is “against any tangible concessions to the Palestinians, yet alone for the freezing of settlement” construction.