“So if you have half a century of conflict – 47 years, 46 years of conflict – there must be something else that is at the core of this conflict….
“Here’s the core of the conflict, and here is the key to its solution: the core of the conflict is not settlements; the core of the conflict are not the territories; the core of the conflict is not the absence of a Palestinian state. The core of the conflict is the persistent refusal to reconcile to an independent nation-state of the Jewish people.”
Harper’s pro-Israel position, because it is based on normal values that almost every other nation has corrupted, gave Prime Minister Netanyahu the extraordinary opportunity to challenge Canadian media covering Harper’s visit to print the whole truth and not half the truth.
“Since you asked about the settlements, then yes, we’ll deal with it in the course of a final settlement of peace, but no, it is not the core of the conflict,” he declared.
“The core of the conflict is the persistent refusal to accept a Jewish nation-state. That was a summation that you can put in a sound bite, but because of the plethora of distortion and shallowness of this discussion, as Prime Minister Harper has said about the general discussions about Israel, then I put before you a great challenge: put everything I just said in your media.
“If you do that, I will put a hat on and take it off for you.”