(PM Netanyahu with Italian President Sergio Mattarella)

The Palestinians must exorcise the "demon" of wanting to destroy the Jewish state Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting Italian President Sergio Mattarella when the two met in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning.

“I (have) turned not only to Hamas, but to President Abbas, and I said, 'Would you recognize a Jewish state, assuming we solve the settlement problem?'” Netanyahu said. “And they won't, because the real settlement issues are the settlements of Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa, Akko,” Netanyahu said. He understood he added, that Mattarella had met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas just the day before. He assured Mattarella, that like his predecessors, he would support the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognized that Israel was a Jewish state.

The conflict, he said, “was and is about the Jewish state, and unless and until our Palestinian neighbors face this, confront these demons, give up the ghost of trying to destroy the Jewish state by this or that means, peace will be harder to achieve.” He explained that he saw the Palestinian drive to pass resolutions at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as part of its refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state. “Denying our history is one of the means of denying the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said of UNESCO’s Jerusalem resolutions that refer to the Temple Mount solely by its Muslim names of Al Haram Al Sharif.

Netanyahu said that fortunately perceptions had shifted in several countries in the Arab world who no longer viewed Israel as an enemy, but as their ally, even a vital ally in fighting against Islamic terrorism.” This could serve as the basis for peace with the Palestinians, Netanyahu said.