After talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that France wanted the new Palestinian government to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “What I heard from President Sarkozy is that they must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people,” Netanyahu told reporters outside the Elyseé Palace in Paris after his meeting on Thursday. “I heard similar things yesterday in Britain and think that in Paris and in London there’s an understanding that whoever wants to make peace must commit to peace and not to the complete opposite,” he said. “I think that’s an important development. Anybody who wants to destroy Israel is not a partner for peace.” Sarkozy urged Netanyahu to take "the risk of peace" and to "say clearly that the Palestinians have a right to a state, and act accordingly."
Israel is concerned that the new Palestinian Authority includes Hamas terrorists dedicated to denying Israel’s right to exist as an independent Jewish state. At the same time, some European leaders like Sarkozy have been suggesting that they might be willing to recognize Palestinian statehood without waiting for a comprehensive peace deal, and would seek a United Nations resolution to confirm it. Sarkozy told the French weekly ‘L'Express’: "If the peace process is still virtually dead in September, France will take its responsibility on the issue of recognizing the Palestinian state."
On his visit to London and to Paris, Netanyahu warned that such a strategy, far from breathing new life into the peace process, could kill it. “A serious quest for peace can only happen through negotiations. It can only happen in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and not through a UN diktat,” he said in Paris.
Meanwhile, following the signing of the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and his Fatah movement in Cairo on Wednesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. Merkel made it clear that a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state was not supported by Germany. "We do not think that unilateral steps are helpful," the chancellor said, while encouraging an "urgent" return to peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. "Given the very changed situation across the entire North African region, I think a peaceful solution is even more urgent ... than it has been for a long time," Merkel said.
