​(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Advisor)
 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Sunday, 15 May 2016), made the following remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting:
 
"This morning I met with the French Foreign Minister. I told him that the scandalous UNESCO decision, which was supported by France, that does not recognize the Jewish People's ties – which are thousands of years old – to the Temple Mount, casts a shadow on the fairness of any forum that France tries to convene. He told me that this decision stemmed from a misunderstanding and that he would personally see to it that it does not recur. I told him that the only way to advance a true peace between us and the Palestinians is by means of direct negotiations between us and them, without preconditions.
 
Our experience with history shows that only this way did we achieve peace with Egypt and Jordan and that any other attempt only makes peace more remote and gives the Palestinians an escape hatch to avoid confronting the root of the conflict which is non-recognition of the State of Israel. They simply avoid negotiating with us as part of their desire to avoid resolving the root of the conflict, which is recognizing the national state of the Jewish People, i.e. the State of Israel.
 
Over the weekend Iran convened a special Holocaust-denial cartoon contest. We raise this here because it must be understood what our problem with Iran is. It is not just its policy of subversion and aggression in the region; it is the values on which it is based. It denies and belittles the Holocaust and it is also preparing another Holocaust. I think that every country in the world must stand up and fully condemn this. This is what I told US Secretary of State John Kerry last night in my conversation with him."