Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas heads a Palestinian cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah July 28, 2013.
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Former Dutch prime minister and longtime pro-Palestinian activist Dries van Agt said Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal who should be prosecuted during his visit this week to the Netherlands.
At a press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, he reiterated his position of readiness to meet Abbas for direct talks without preconditions, including in Moscow.
Netanyahu was also asked about the postponement of a long-anticipated meeting with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, which Abbas had said was planned to be held in Moscow on Friday.
Palestine’s Ambassador to Russia Abdel Hafiz Nofal told Sputnik on Monday that Abbas and Netanyahu looked set to meet in Moscow, but the exact timing was not defined.
The two leaders have not had a substantive meeting in several years, and the direct talks proposed by Russian Federation would have represented a breakthrough in peace efforts.
Netanyahu said that while his government is in a conflict with what he called “terrorist forces” in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement, Israel still wishes to improve the quality of life for most people living there.
“We continue working on the date and the form and the content of the meeting”, he said.
It was not immediately clear how serious the proposed meeting had been.
“There’s a war criminal coming to this country”, the 85-year-old van Agt said Monday in an interview with Dutch public television channel NPO 1. “I said this to his envoy Bogdanov”.
If Abu Mazen is ready to meet for direct talks without preconditions, I am ready at any time.
In recent weeks, Israeli officials have maintained that Jerusalem will not accede to such preconditions “just for the privilege of a meeting” with Abbas.
Polls have also shown that the majority of Palestinians want the 81-year-old Abbas to resign, making it hard for him to take any steps that could be seen as concessions.
He said that the trust between the two sides is at an “all time low”, and that both sides need to take positive steps “to create a positive climate in which credible negotiations are possible”.
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Netanyahu went on to dwell on the big changes overtaking Europe as a result of the spread of radical Islam. Half a million have already been butchered, countless others have been made homeless and of these, millions are streaming into Europe.
