Binyamin Netanyahu invited Jewish federation leaders around the country Wednesday to join him in spurning the U.S. decision to talk to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Israel’s deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to the United Nations said the United States should recognize recent statements by PLO chairman Yasir Arafat as a repudiation of his new anti-terrorism stand, and suspend the recently opened talks.
Netanyahu spoke over a closed-circuit TV broadcast carried to federation offices in 10 cities on the Council of Jewish Federations Satellite Network.
The Likud hard-liner said the PLO’s intention remains the destruction of Israel.
“Israel is under siege to accept the unacceptable, to allow a PLO state in the very heartland of the Jewish state,” he said.
“We want to change the status quo, to end the violence and improve the lives of the Arabs that live there, but we can’t proceed on the road world opinion is sending us.”
Netanyahu’s presence on the CJF broadcast was not an attempt to advocate one side of a highly divisive issue in Israel, said Donald Feldstein, associate executive vice president of CJF. He described it as an informational broadcast.
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