In order for a diplomatic process to take place Palestinians need to return to the negotiating table and not take unilateral steps against Israel in the international arena, newly appointed Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told visiting EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini on Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is committed to a diplomatic process with the Palestinians~but it is the Palestinians who abandoned US-led negotiations a year and a half ago, she said.
Referring to the Jerusalem terror attack earlier in the day in which two Border Police officers were wounded by a Palestinian terrorists who tried to run them down, Hotovely said that Europe should strongly condemn terrorism, as well as back Israel’s demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.
Hotovely welcomed Mogherini's comment that she was interested in coming now after the establishment of the new Israeli government to listen to both sides, saying that her visit had a “great deal of importance.”
Mogherini, who travelled to Ramallah for meetings with Palestinian officials, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, will have a meeting and dinner later in the day with Netanyahu. She will also meet Thursday with Opposition leader Isaac Herzog and with President Reuven Rivlin on Thursday.
On Monday Mogherini said that there was “political meaning” in her coming to Jerusalem so early after the formation of Netanyahu’s new government, and that the message is that the EU “is ready and willing to play a major role in relaunching the peace process on the basis of the two state solution.”
She said that that her visit would also be an opportunity to listen to the perspectives of the sides, gauge their intentions and “see how to overcome the status quo’’ which she said, ‘’is not an option.’’