“I see no change in the Palestinian position since 1993,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Likud / Yisrael Beytenu Knesset faction Monday, according to Israel Hayom. In response to a question from MK Tzipi Hotovely, he said that he is not interested in an interim accord and that the negotiations are about a permanent agreement.

1993 is the year in which Israel signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO, allowing the terror umbrella group to establish an armed presence in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, and creating the Palestinian Authority.

In an interview with i24 television, Netanyahu explained: “I’ve made real efforts, painful efforts. I gave the Bar Ilan speech, which wasn’t easy to do, as the Likud leader, in front of a religious university. I’d like to see Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] give the Bir Zeit speech. I’d like him to stand, as I did, in front of my constituency, and say – ‘two states for two peoples. A Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state.’ I’ve yet to hear him say that.”

Netanyahu was referring to his speech at bar Ilan University in 2009, in which he first spoke in favor of a “Palestinian state,” albeit a demilitarized one. Bir Zeit is a radical university in Shechem, which is under PA control.

Netanyahu told i24 he cannot see the PA leadership making moves that require them to withstand severe criticism in their own society. “If they can’t even stand behind the agreements that we reached – we release prisoners but continue to build – then how can I see them delivering on the larger subjects, which will require that they confront head-on public opinion and positions in their society?”

View original Arutz Sheva publication at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/173629#.UnjGvhCPlgh