Netanyahu: I want Abbas to give his own Bar-Ilan speech

The prime minister wants PA president to declare his support for two-state solution in a speech at a Palestinian university.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Netanyahu at Bar Ilan 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Netanyahu at Bar Ilan 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wants Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to show the seriousness of his intentions by making his own Bar-Ilan speech, calling for a two state solution.
"I'd like to see Abu Mazen [Abbas] give the Birzeit [University] speech," Netanyahu said in an interview with i24News.
"I'd like him to stand, as I did in front of my constituencies, and say 'two states for two peoples. A Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state.' I've yet to hear him say that."
The prime minister stressed that such a speech is important to him because, much like his own speech at Bar-Ilan University, it is not an easy speech to make.
"I have made real efforts, painful efforts, I gave the Bar-Ilan speech, which wasn't easy to do as a Likud leader in front of a religious university," he told i24News.