(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

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."