World community must tell Abbas to stop inciting terror: Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday urged the international community to tell Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to stop “incitement” of what he condemned as terrorism.

“If we want to have peace we have to stop terror. And to stop terror we have to stop incitement,” he said in Berlin, following talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and on the eve of a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

“I think it’s important that the international community demand president Abbas to stop the incitement and stop spreading lies about the Jewish state and about Israel’s policy.”

Claiming that “president Abbas joined the Islamists in inciting the recent wave of violence”, Netanyahu said among “false” claims made by Abbas was that Israel was “seeking to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque.”

The flashpoint compound, which is considered sacred to both Islam and Judaism, is located in the southeastern corner of the Old City in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. Muslims call it Al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) while Jews rever it as the Temple Mount which housed the First and Second Temples.

“Israel is the only guarantor in Jerusalem and elsewhere for the sanctity of holy sites,” Netanyahu said, also taking the Palestinian leader to task for failing to condemn a series of attacks on Israelis in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Earlier Wednesday, Abbas called on Israel to strictly respect rules governing Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

“The continued occupation and aggression against Christian and Muslim holy sites in east Jerusalem, particularly against Al-Aqsa, opens the door to a religious conflict, which has unfortunately started,” Abbas told journalists.

“We don’t want it and we are warning over its consequences.”