UN Chief Ban Ki-moon and Knesset Speaker Yuli
UN Chief Ban Ki-moon and Knesset Speaker YuliFlash 90

Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said on Thursday that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas should also make goodwill gestures to Israel, just as Israel was forced to release terrorists so he’d come to the negotiating table.

Speaking during a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is visiting Israel, Edelstein said of the terrorist release, "Prime Minister Netanyahu made took a very bold step, in my opinion, when he decided to release Palestinian prisoners. The people of Israel strongly oppose the release and are wondering why only Israel is required to make gestures and whether the longing for peace is only on the part of Israel.”

Edelstein clarified that Israel expects Abbas to take “confident-building” steps that will create a good atmosphere for the continuation of peace talks. One of these steps, said the Knesset Speaker, is that the incitement against Israel at PA schools be stopped.

"Part of the effort for peace is educating for peace and not for hatred of Israel, and the Palestinians must stop the incitement against Israel in its education system,” he declared.

Edelstein expressed his hope that Israel and the PA will continue cooperation in various fields such as agriculture, medicine and water.

"These are projects of ‘people working with people’, which need to continue parallel to the peace process," he told Ban, asking him to "use your influence with the Palestinian leadership on this issue."

Even as the peace talks between Israel and the PA have restarted, there have been many incidents of incitement on PA TV, as reported by Arutz Sheva.

In the most recent such incident, PA TV broadcast a crudely anti-Semitic program legitimizing violence against Jews in Judea and Samaria - who were stereotyped as violent thieves. The end of the program glorified the humiliation of a religious Jew by cutting off his peyote side-curls, in a scene chillingly reminiscent of Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda.

Other Ramadan broadcasts included a re-run of a music video encouraging violence against Israelis, and the glorification of the murderer of 61 Israeli civilians on the official Facebook page of Abbas' Fatah party.

Abbas himself recently said that there would not be a single Israeli (i.e., Jew) living within a future PA state.