On Dec. 7, 1988, Yasser Arafat stated in Stockholm that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) accepted the existence of the state of Israel. At a news conference that day, Arafat said, "We accept two states, the Palestine state and the Jewish state." Despite the clear message of Arafat's statement, it was dismissed by Israel and greeted coldly by the United States.
On his address to the Knesset honoring the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the 20th anniversary of his assassination, Israel's current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said, "The Palestinians aren't prepared to recognize once and for all the national state of the Jewish people, they are not truly prepared to end the conflict and give up the dream of returning to Haifa, Jaffa and Acre."
This is not the first time that Netanyahu's words conflict with historical facts. Recently, at the 37th International Zionist Congress, he stated that a grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, an Arab nationalist and a zealous foe of Zionism, was one of the main instigators of the Holocaust. With these assertions, Netanyahu not only shows his ignorance of history but, more seriously, contributes to the demonization of the Arab peoples, particularly the Palestinians.