[Al Arabiya Latest] For the first time since taking office Israel's hawkish new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday saying he intends to advance peace through cooperation even though settlement expansion continued, as Pope Benedict called in his Easter message for a renewed push for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Netanyahu vowed to hold talks with the Palestinians, in his first remarks on the troubled Middle East peace process since taking office.
In a phone call with Abbas, Netanyahu "spoke of the cooperation and the discussions that they have had in the past and added that he intends to do so again in the future in order to advance peace between us and the Palestinians," a statement from his office said.
However, it quickly became clear that there was indeed no change in the Israeli stand as residents of a Palestinian Christian housing project in the West Bank village of Beit Sahour say Israel is encircling their community with a security road to separate them from a nearby Jewish settlement.
In his phone call to Netanyahu, Abbas had extended holiday greetings for the Jewish Passover festival and added that "both sides needed to work for peace." Those sides, it seems, lie along Israel's new security road.