Q: Prime Minister, you know that the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said that he is essentially not going to follow the Oslo process; that he will not abide by it anymore. You mentioned it in your speech. I want to ask you, since it does feel like the peace process is dead (if it ever had much life in it), about his son… There's a New York Times report where he gave an interview. He said "I'm not for my father's plan; I think the peace process is dead. I don't want a two state solution; I want a one state solution. I just want rights. I just want political rights. If you're not going to give me a state, give me political rights.

You know there are other Palestinians who feel this way… About a third of Palestinians now, and it is more for younger Palestinians, want just political rights. Will they get them?

A: I think that the right solution is a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state. They want a Palestinian state, we have a Jewish state. We should have mutual recognition of these two nation states, and provisions on the ground by which Israel can defend itself, by itself. And I think that's eminently preferable to the idea of a unitary state which I don't want. I think that the reason the peace process doesn't move forward, is because the Palestinians…

There are basically two provisions: One is – you have got to renounce terrorism and act against it and, unfortunately, that's not what they're doing. We just had a young mother and a young father brutally murdered by Palestinian terrorists, with four little orphans in the back of the car, and President Abbas has yet to denounce this. On the rare occasions that we have – and we do have on certain occasions – acts of terrorism by Jews, we all go there like gangbusters, we condemn it, we do everything we can to find them and to fight them. I expect President Abbas to do the same. So one is, you have to stop this incitement against Israel, because incitement leads to acts of terrorism.

But the second thing is – you've got to stay in the process, you've got to come and sit around the table.

Q: Why not to use this opportunity to make a bold counter-offer, not just a process one, but an actual proposal for a Palestinian state?

A: Well, I've made several offers, but you know, his offers and my offers obviously don't cohere, and I said look, the only way you are going to do this, is let's sit around the table. Here's the list…

Q: He says the problem is that you're building settlements, even in Area C…

A: I think the problem is that he is inciting to terrorism. I think the problem is he is spreading lies about the Temple Mount and what we're doing there. We are the guardians of the Temple Mount. And for God's sake, without Israel, what will happen on those sacred sites will be what happened in Palmyra. But you see, I have complaints, he has complaints. There's only one way to get a peace process going, peace negotiations going – you've got to sit down and negotiate. Yet in the seven years that I've been sitting now in the Prime Minister's office, we haven't had seven hours that he was willing to talk. And it's not because of me. The fact is, I'm willing to have this conversation, he's not.

Q: He says you're creating facts on the ground and building settlements.

A: So is he. He's creating a lot of facts on the ground.

Q: Last question – you talked about terrorism against Palestinians, terrorism by Israelis. The President of Israel posed this question: Why is this culture of extremism flourishing in Israel right now? Do you think that there is an atmosphere that has incited or allowed this kind of extremism to flourish?

A: No. I think the test is not whether societies have extremists. The question is what does the mainstream do about it. And in our case, we go wild against it. Every part of our society unites against any example of terrorism in our midst. But what I see in Ramallah is that President Abbas calls public squares in the honor of mass murderers, and that's unfortunate. It's a tragedy, I think, for us and the Palestinians too. The culture of peace, the culture of acceptance, the culture of diversity, for women, for Christians, for gays, and so on, is very much ingrained in our culture, and that's why we don't educate our people that we have to destroy the Palestinians. We want peace with the Palestinians. But for that we have to sit down. And I think that's one order of the day. And the other order of the day is what I said before – I think we have to protect ourselves against the rising tide of militant Islam and religious fanaticism that is threatening all of us. And Israel is there, standing in the breach, and I appreciate the fact that, despite our disagreements on the Iran nuclear deal, both the supporters of the deal and the opponents of the deal – those who supported it and those who opposed it – they all agree – now we have to strengthen Israel. And I think that's the best guarantor of peace.

Q: Prime Minister Netanyahu, thank you so much.​