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Netanyahu: Israel Ready for Substantive Negotiations, Palestinians Refuse

(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel is ready for substantive negotiations and has taken significant steps to launch them, but the Palestinians have simply refused to engage. Israel wants to make progress on the Palestinian track because it wants peace, Netanyahu said, but the idea that this needs to be done to tackle Iran has been proven as a non-starter by the WikiLeaks cables. Netanyahu also stressed that any final accord must include an Israeli security presence on the Jordan River to prevent the type of arms smuggling from Jordan into the West Bank that Israel has seen from Sinai into Gaza, or from Syria to Hizbullah in Lebanon. He said international forces are not effective in places where there is an attack on the force, or where they have to deal with ongoing hostilities. It is clear, Netanyahu said, that any force designed to prevent the smuggling of arms to terrorists would come under attack by terrorists who wanted to get those arms. Only Israelis, he said, could be counted on to effectively do the job.
2010-12-24 08:17:53
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