Jerusalem – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said he would be “perfectly open” to meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and rejected accusations that his government is using excessive force in response to a spate of stabbing attacks.
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The Palestinian president has ignited an uproar in Israel after falsely claiming that Israel had “executed” a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who is recovering in an Israeli hospital, drawing new accusations that he is inciting violence at a time of heightened tensions.
Netanyahu told reporters he has been speaking to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other leaders about meeting with Abbas.
“I’d be perfectly open to it now,” he said.
“I think it’s potentially useful because it might stop the wave of incitement and false allegations against Israel,” he said. “I’d be open to meeting with Arab leaders and the Palestinian leadership in order to stop this incitement and set the record straight.”
Netanyahu said Israel was using legitimate force and any other country would do the same to deal with “people wielding knives, meat cleavers, axes, trying to kill people on their streets”.
“What do you think would happen in New York if you saw people rushing into crowds trying to murder people? What do you think they would do? Do you think they would do anything differently than we are doing?”
The Palestinian boy, who was run over by an Israeli vehicle after involvement in the stabbing of an Israeli boy, has become the center of heated, high-level name-calling between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders — reflecting the abyss between them after a monthlong spike in deadly violence.
Abbas said in a televised speech late Wednesday that Israel is engaged in the “summary execution of our children in cold blood” and wrongly claimed that 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra was among those killed. Netanyahu swiftly accused Abbas of “lies and incitement.”
Israel’s Hadassah Hospital, which is treating the boy, issued a statement Thursday saying that “in stark contrast to circulating rumors,” he was stable and “fully conscious.”
Dr. Asher Salmon, the deputy director of Hadassah, said the boy is in “light to moderate condition,” and that he could expect to be discharged in coming days.
Israel has beefed up security across the country in response to the unrest. On Thursday, the military said it would deploy 300 soldiers in the streets of Jerusalem to help police maintain order.
It said the soldiers will help guard public transportation and the city’s main arteries. They will be deployed on Sunday. Israel has already sent thousands of additional police officers to Jerusalem and erected a series of checkpoints in Palestinian neighborhoods of the city.
The man is sick. The Lubavitcher Rebbe said that even talk about meeting with terrorist brings tragedy upon us. Check out when the wave of terror broke out. Directly after his sick statement in the UN. And here he goes again bowing before the poritz.
Make sure Abbas doesn’t bring a knife with him.
You idiot. How can you continue to allow this murderer to be in power. Shoot this animal before he GD forbid kills more of us.
Meeting? Bibi…a meeting…with whom. ..are u kidding me?.just do what u were meant to do.be what you were elected to be.. .The Prime Minister of the State of Israel..strong and steadfast in your resolve to protect and defend your people…stop trying to appease anyone…stand with Am Yisroel…so we can stand with you!
Zionist leaders show they dont believe in their own cause, when you always appease and justify your existence, you begin to doubt your cause.
To #1 & 4:
Apparently you guys don’t really get what’s going on here.
Bibi KNOWS they will never agree to anything, not negotiating and not recognizing Israel and definitely not stopping terror. He’s calling their bluff and knows they can’t and won’t change.
He’s showing the world what the terrorists are really like. Problem is, the world still hasn’t opened its eyes.
If we only had a leader as strong as Bibi here in the states
Bibi, you can’t be this naive!! Do you really believe if you meet with abbas, just”to talk things through,” that he’s suddenly going to turn peaceful and stop his incitement?!!! No, what this offer of yours will turn into, is Obama and the rest of the anti Semitic world will force you to start the so called “land for PEACE (pieces)” negotiations again, in which you will have to start giving more of your goodwill gestures to the arabs who seek israel’s destruction c’v, give up more Israeli land from which the savages will continue to attack, etc. STOP SHOWING WEAKNESS!!! STOP CRAWLING TO THE AMERICANS AND aRABS begging them to start loving us Jews! It will never happen! Get your head out of the sand and start putting Israeli lives first, instead of putting your fear of obama y’s first!
If obama were an upstanding, fair human being, instead of the vicious anti Semite he is, he’d demand abbass not only condemn all the terror his people have been committing against innocent Israelis, but he’d make the pig apologize in front of every TVcamera and news outlet for lying about the young vermin supposedly being executed!!
You can’t lead looking backwards who’s on your shoulder. ..you have to march on looking forward stalwart..strong…courageous…like he expects his men to be…fighting for a cause and for your very existance takes fortitude…takes looking ahead…
Abbas…he can meet with his cronies and eat falafel….
I would hope that this next “meeting” has only the agenda of rubbing Abbas’ evil face in his typical lies and incitement. However, there is one drawback. It is the anti-Israel, pro-terror rosho named Barack Obama y”sh. He will use all the international clout to prevent letting the entire world see that Abbas has never ever been a man of peace, only a warrior who manipulates the world powers into twisting Israel’s arm into more concessions. We wish the same end for both Abbas and Obama. Yimach shemom vezichrom.
“involvement in the stabbing of an Israeli boy” involvement like doing the stabbing? What do you mean involvement?
“high-level name-calling between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders” So now we are talking about both the stabbing of children in the street and name calling? Whats name calling?
Most of the bloggers here are out of their element. You are like children who wander into a movie theater well after the movie has started and have no idea what is going on. Who are you to give advice to the Prime Minister of Israel? You live in the Fleshpots of the U.S, have never served in the IDF, have no intention of serving in any military, yet you have have the temerity to speak as if you know better?
The least you can do is come to Israel and vote for a person that you think can lead the nation better than those who are doing it now. Israel needs more Jews,not more advisisers in galut.
And you anti Zionist folks like Albroker….you are all anachronisms. No doubt if you lived in Persia during the time of Haman, you’d be criticizing Mordechai for being a trouble maker. You’d be saying “we never had trouble with this government until Mordechai, the trouble maker, started rocking the boat. Why can’t he cooperate with Haman?” Then you’d find some passage in the Talmud or Bible to support your point. You are a sorry lot. When we need achdut, you sow the seeds of discontent and hatred. What a pity.