BICOM

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored the importance of building bridges with the country’s neighbours, a process he said he is already undertaking, in an address to the Herzliya Conference, a major policy gathering, Tuesday night.

Netanyahu said “Every state needs alliances… A small state like Israel definitely needs alliances.” To that end, Netanyahu revealed that he speaks to “quite a few of our neighbours, more than you think.” In particular, they had urged him, said Netanyahu to “go out there” and speak to Washington about Iran’s nuclear threat.

He also outlined the importance of Arab countries in the region to bring about Israeli-Palestinian peace. Netanyahu explained that “bridge building” is “not always achieved by grand pronouncements.” Instead, he said “Bridge building… has been quietly strengthened in the past few years and can be dramatically strengthened in the years ahead, especially if some of our Arab neighbours join us in influencing the Palestinians to get back to the table and negotiate a responsible deal.”

Expanding on his ambitions for peace, Netanyahu announced “I again call on [Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas to again return to negotiations without preconditions” in order to “try to negotiate a real deal of a demilitarised [Palestinian] state that recognises the nation state of the Jewish people.” Netanyahu said that he had been trying to talk with Abbas for six and a half years but that the Palestinians “refuse to negotiate, and then get international pressure, sanctions and boycotts on Israel for there not being negotiations.”

Two weeks ago, Netanyahu backed the overall principle behind the regional Arab Peace Initiative, which was first presented by Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah in 2002. On several occasions in the last year, Netanyahu has said that a wider rapprochement with the Arab world could lead to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Also at Herzliya yesterday, former-Prime Minister Ehud Barak said that as the strongest country in the region, Israel can “change reality” and negotiate its borders “from a position of strength and self-confidence.” He called on Israel to freeze construction beyond the settlement blocks.