Israel needs negotiations with the Palestinians, not more speeches or another United Nations resolution, Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon said Wednesday morning.
"The Palestinians need to come to the table and negotiate with Israel, but after the shameful resolution, we are skeptical about it," Danon told CNN's Don Lemon on the "New Day" program, making his comments in the hours before Secretary of State John Kerry was to deliver a speech laying out the Obama administration's vision for Middle East peace.
Israel has been fighting back a U.N. Security Council resolution against its West Bank settlements, and Danon said that because of the resolution, the Palestinian government does not think it needs to enter into negotiations.
"When you negotiate, you negotiate," Danon said. "The Palestinians want to get the results of the negotiations without entering the room. You know how many hours Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat the last eight years to negotiate with the Palestinians? Less than seven hours."
Danon said Israel is willing to negotiate everything, including its settlements, but the United Nations has already decided how the talks will go, Danon said.
"How can you achieve peace that way?" he asked. "How can you achieve peace without allowing the Palestinians to negotiate? What will happen after the negotiations? We live in Israel with the Palestinians but in order to live together, we need to sit down and negotiate."
Jerusalem, meanwhile, is the "united capital of Israel, period," Danon told Lemon, but when the U.N. passed "such a ridiculous resolution," it told the Palestinians that negotiations were not needed.
However, he thinks there will be a "new approach" when President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Meanwhile, Israel is not stupid, Danon said, and it "knows the Obama administration was behind this shameful resolution."
The country plans to present evidence to Trump, he continued, to prove collusion and leave it up to him to decide whether to expose it.
On Wednesday, Trump posted two tweets indicating his support of Israel and his disdain for how the Obama administration has treated the United States ally, and urging the country to "stay strong."
The ambassador, also appearing on Fox News' "America's Newsroom," commented after Trump's tweets that Israel is "a strong democracy, we will continue to be strong and prevail the shameful resolution passed last Friday. We are waiting to see secretary Kerry's approach in the speech."
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"In the past, the U.S. stood with Israel, but this time U.S. took advantage of their strength in the Security Council to work out a resolution, which is one-sided and will not support the peace forces," Danon said.
Meanwhile, he said, Israel has historical and legal rights, and it has rights to the land in Jerusalem.
"Let's say we have a dispute about it, we should negotiate it," Danon said. "To actually achieve peace, we did it in the past, we signed an agreement with Egypt, with Jordan through direct negotiation.
"Nobody will be in the Middle East to moderate the peace forces. We need to do it ourselves and by coming to the U.N. and bypassing negotiations you are telling Palestinians, don't negotiate, continue with the incitement and continue to support terrorism in Israel, we will take care of everything you want in New York."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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