Following is an excerpt concerning relations with the Palestinians from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the Herzliya Conference on Tuesday (9 June):
“I said there's opportunity, and I think everyone here understands it because the trepidation of the Sunni states from Iran on the one hand, and ISIS on the other, and everyone else, creates a change and a potential for cooperation, perhaps even to resolve the problem that we want to resolve with the Palestinians.
I don't think it will change the Middle East, mind you. I think you understand that. It's not going to affect al-Nusra or ISIS, those savages. It's not going to affect Iran either. But it might affect us because we don't want a one-state solution. I don't want a one-state solution.
I remain committed to a solution of two states for two peoples as I said at Bar-Ilan. I said in Bar-Ilan the solution as I see it is a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state. These are not conditions for entering the talks. I place no conditions. But these are the foundations of an enduring peace between us and the Palestinians, assuming the region will not be swept by these larger forces.
The Palestinians expect us to recognize a Palestinian nation-state but they won't recognize a Jewish nation-state, a Jewish nation-state for the Jewish people with full rights for all the non-Jews that live here. I wish I could say the same for the Palestinians.
But that's what we want - mutual recognition. Then demilitarization. What does that mean? It's not something you put on a slide. You say security for Israel guaranteed. How do you guarantee it? How do you guarantee that if we leave those areas, what happened in Lebanon doesn't repeat, what happened in Gaza doesn't repeat? These are not whims, these are not pretexts, excuses, arguments. This is real. How do you prevent tunnels from being dug from Qalqilia to Kfar Saba? Why there only? There are several thousand tunnels in the seam line between Gaza and Egypt; that's 17 kilometers. Several thousand tunnels. You know about the tunnels they dug and are still trying to dig towards the Israeli side.
We are working on that. The Israeli mind is a gifted mind and is doing great things. But who will ultimately guarantee that those tunnels are not dug? Who will go into Qalqilia and stop it? Who will prevent the smuggling of weapons? Today the main problem in Gaza is not the smuggling of weapons; it is the independent manufacture of weapons.
I again call on President Abbas to return to negotiations without preconditions. But I also know he has very little reason to talk. Why should he talk? He can get by without talking. He can get by with an international community that blames Israel for not having talks. In other words, the Palestinians run from the table. They ran away from Prime Minister Barak. They ran away from Prime Minister Olmert. They ran away, before that, from Prime Minister Sharon. And they ran away from me. When John Kerry proposed a framework for negotiations, the framework for a disagreement, for God's sake, they ran away from that, too.
But the Palestinians have a nifty trick up their sleeve - they refuse to negotiate, and then they get international pressure, sanctions and boycotts on Israel for there not being negotiations. It's a perfect Catch-22. And there are those who attempt to impose terms on Israel in the Security Council because there are no talks, and some of them pretend that the dangers we face are not real dangers at all.
I think what that does is drive peace away. The idea of imposing peace from the outside doesn't work anyway, but what it guarantees is: One, we'll resist it; two, the Palestinians will not come to the table because if they can get starting terms that are unacceptable to any Israeli government and from which they can press their charges even more, why should they come to negotiate?
I hope that they change course, both in seeking an international fiat or going to the ICC. Now, that's particularly onerous. Israel fights a legitimate war. It's an embattled democracy that has been pelleted with rockets and missiles like no other, that targets the rocketeers and the missile launchers, who hide in hospitals and schools and residential areas. And Israel is hauled or to be hauled to the ICC, where the rules of international warfare are turned on their head, because the ICC was set up in the wake of the Holocaust, by the way, to deal with countries that don't have functioning legal systems to monitor their military forces. And Israel is one of the - I'll be charitable - one of a dozen states that has such standards.
Now, those who support the indiscriminate rocketing of civilians, which is a war crime, while hiding behind civilians and children, which is another war crime – they and their supporters are taking Israel to the International Court of Justice. This is something that all Israelis should unite against and all supporters of Israel and justice and truth should unite against, because it's unjust. It's untrue. And it's very bad for peace.
There might be an opening, because some of the Arab states silently agree with what I say, because they might be in a position to influence the Palestinians to adopt a more conciliatory and positive approach. It'll be hard because, you know, all politics is theater and international politics is theater, too, and everyone is cast in a role. You know the role I'm cast in, which is really the role Israel is cast in. But the truth also counts, not only imagery.
We've extended our hand time and time and time again. The problems that I described, the solution that I propose requires laborious, serious, deep negotiations. And even then we'll have to buttress it with other safeguards, not only, by the way, for Israel, but also for the Palestinian Authority because the first casualties of a bad deal here will be not only Israel, but they too. We didn't have such arrangements in Gaza, and Hamas with 3,000 people overran the PA forces, with 15,000, in hours or days.
So it makes sense from the point of view of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to try to negotiate a real deal of a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the nation-state of the Jewish people.
There are many things that could ignite the region, our immediate region. (The [general] region is already ignited. It's in full ignition.) One of them is Gaza. I have a very clear policy: You fire at us, we fire back. Hamas is responsible for non-Hamas rocket fire, too. But we don't want the region to ignite, not here, not vis-à-vis Lebanon. But we're always preparing. And in the case of Gaza, we also want to give a solution to the humanitarian crisis there. Since last summer's operation, we've enabled 1.1 million tons of construction materials into Gaza. We enable humanitarian relief. There are kids from Gaza in Israeli hospitals. There are kids from Syria in Israeli field hospitals, which we set up across the Golan Heights. There are kids from the entire Middle East who are in Israeli field hospitals. You just go into any one of the hospitals, you'll see them.
But in Gaza – One point one million tons of construction material. We try to increase the security checks so they don't siphon off materials for the construction of tunnels. That’s a risk we take. I think it's a measured risk because we don't want a humanitarian explosion. We used to pride ourselves that 250-300 trucks a day go into Gaza in our accelerated humanitarian efforts. The number now reaches 800. That's not an odd day.
If there is one force now that is working for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Gaza and humanitarian relief, it's Israel, pure and simple. That's the truth. You're not going to read about it, but I'm telling you. These are the facts. I won't go into who's preventing that. You can use your imagination.
But these are the facts. I can always deal with facts. When people tell you these are the facts, that's fine. Deal with facts any day. It's the distortion of fact that we have to deal with day in, day out. And I think it's important that as many people in Israel unite to fend off these distortions and vilifications and slanders. I don't think we're [lacking] tools. I don't think we're making too much of this threat, but I also think that we shouldn't make too little of our capacity to fight it. First of all, you have to resist it. The first way you resist a lie is by telling the truth unabashedly, unashamedly and without exaggeration. The second is to take measures. I was heartened by the fact that two states in the United States have adopted anti-boycott legislation and I understand there is a move in the US Congress to expand it. And that's very important, because when people have to choose whether they want to boycott the Israeli economy and be shut out from a 17-trillion-dollar economy, it sort of forces their concentration.”