JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Palestinians' "refusal to recognize" Israel is "the root of the conflict" between Israel and the Palestinians.
Speaking Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu addressed a statement by the Palestinian Ministry of Information, calling the Balfour Declaration the "biggest political crime in contemporary history."
The Balfour Declaration is the name given to a Nov. 2, 1917, letter in which British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour called for establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
"That declaration recognized the right of the Jewish people to its own homeland in Israel," Netanyahu said Sunday. "There is no doubt that international recognition of the Jewish people's right to its own state in its historic homeland is important; the refusal to recognize us is the root of the conflict."
Netanyahu said there can be no peace with the Palestinians until they recognize Israel's right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people, and said no peace accord is possible unless the Palestinians give up the so-called right of return and other claims on Israel, the Jerusalem Post reported.
"Britain and the entire world must recognize the usurped Palestinian rights because everything that has befallen Palestine -- it's partition, the aggression, the suppression, the settlements, the arrests, the separation wall, the siege on Gaza, and the millions of Palestinians living in exile -- was made possible because of the Balfour Declaration," the Palestinian statement said.
