Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister Binyamin NetanyahuPrime Minister's Office (PMO)

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu clarified on Monday that his handshake with Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas at the UN climate conference in Paris was part of diplomatic protocol and did not signify a change in their relationship, Haaretz reported.

At the same time, Netanyahu stressed in a conversation with reporters that he is not hoping for the downfall of the PA because the alternative was liable to be worse.

During the group photo of the state leaders who had come to the climate conference, Netanyahu was placed in the same row as Abbas, with only New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key between them. After the photo shoot, Netanyahu and Abbas shook hands and exchanged a few polite remarks. It was the first time the two had met and shaken hands since September 2010.

Netanyahu later said, however, that shaking Abbas’ hand was in keeping with diplomatic protocol and did not signify any change in their relationship.

“There’s a diplomatic protocol and I behave as is customary,” he said, according to Haaretz. “It’s important that the world see that we are prepared to speak to the Palestinians, but I have no illusions about [Abbas].”

At the same, he told reporters, “I do not wish for the collapse of the Palestinian Authority.” Netanyahu added that Israel is trying to implement measures that would prevent such a development, but refused to elaborate.

“The fact that there’s now a bad alternative [the PA], doesn’t mean that we won’t get a worse alternative,” he said. “But there has to be a change in the PA leadership’s behavior.”

The relationship between Israel and the PA has cooled significantly in the intervening five years, after the PA made a series of unilateral moves to the UN in 2014. Among them: applying for recognition as a "Palestinian state" and suing Israel for "war crimes" in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In response, Netanyahu cut off all formal diplomatic relations with Ramallah, although rumors resurface periodically of indirect talks on the lower political rungs.

Monday’s handshake apparently didn’t change anything for Abbas, either, noted Haaretz. In his meeting with French President Francois Hollande on the sidelines of the conference, Abbas asked that France renew its efforts to promote a UN Security Council resolution establishing principles for the ending of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Later, in his speech to the conference, Abbas used the opportunity to attack Israel and claimed that the Jewish state was responsible for the PA’s ecological problems.

"The Israeli occupation continues to violate international laws related to the preservation of the environment, which is the main challenge for our operations in this matter," he charged.

"[The occupation] takes control of natural resources, destroys crops, uproots our trees, does not allow us to complete the development of infrastructure essential to our country, throws garbage of various types on our soil, contaminates our water, and all this as part of a regime of racial discrimination which contradicts international law," claimed Abbas.