WATCH VIDEO: Arab countries are beginning to recognize that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians. “Everybody gets the message: Israel is ready for peace. Israel is not the obstacle to peace,” stated the prime minister. “Who gets this best? Arab states.”

By I24News Desk

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “never been more hopeful” about Israel, the Mideast, and “even” the United Nations, and is ready for direct negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, he said on Wednesday as he addressed the annual Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference.

Israel is in the midst of a historic revolution in its place among the nations, said the prime minister, as changes occur in the global economy and technology continues to develop.

Netanyahu said that more and more countries were turning to Israel for assistance in combating terrorism and in search of technological innovation.

“Our relations with the Arab world are rapidly changing,” Netanyahu declared. “They don’t see Israel as an enemy, but as an indispensable ally in the fight against radical Islam.”

Meanwhile, he said, Arab countries are beginning to recognize that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians. “Everybody gets the message: Israel is ready for peace. Israel is not the obstacle to peace,” stated the prime minister. “Who gets this best? Arab states.”

At the same conference, Hazem Khairat, the Egyptian ambassador to Israel, called Jerusalem to issue a renewed endorsement of the Saudi Peace Initiative of 2002. He also said the so-called Two State Solution was still feasible, however settlement building is delaying the prospects for peace.

The peace proposal put forward by the late King Abdullah, known as the Arab Peace Initiative, offered Israel blanket recognition from 22 Arab states in return for an independent state for the Palestinians.

Its outline was recently rejected by Netanyahu.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he was more “realistic” than optimistic about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The defense minister said a peace deal within the next three or four years was an “illusion” and that Israel has already offered the Palestinians the most generous agreement possible, the Jerusalem Post reports.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, meanwhile, told the conference that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement was rooted in the same ideology as terrorism.

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