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French President Nicolas Sarkozy accompanied by his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (C) and Holocaust survivor Simone Veil stand during a ceremony Monday morning in the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, which commemorates the six million Jews killed by the Nazis.
Photo: AFP Copyright 2008
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JERUSALEM (EJP)---Proclaiming his staunch support for Israel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on Monday for a halt to Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.
In a landmark address to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Sarkozy told MPs and invited guests: “There can be no peace without stopping settlement.”
"There is a proposal backed by many members of your Knesset for the adoption of a law that would encourage settlers to leave the West Bank in exchange for compensation and relocation in Israel," he said.
Repeating several times that France was trongly committed to Israel’s security and that he was speaking as a friend, Sarkozy also called for an easing of travel restrictions in the West Bank.
But he said the Palestinians too had to do more in order to achieve peace. "There can be no peace if Palestinians themselves do not combat terrorism."
"France will always be by Israel's side when its security, its existence are threatened," the French president said.
Sarkozy said a lasting peace required the creation of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel with both sharing Jerusalem as their capital.
"There can be no peace without recognising Jerusalem as the capital of two states and the guarantee of freedom of access to the holy places for all religions," he said.
Israel is considering Jerusalem as its "eternal and indivisible" capital.
Arab MPs angry at Netanyahu
Before Sarkozy addressed the plenum, the leader of the Likud opposition party Binyamin Netanyahu made the comparison between radical Islamism and Nazism, which elicited angry heckles from Arab members of the Knesset who yelled at him: "Shame on you! Nazism and radical Islamism? Shame on you, what is this comparison?"
Sarkozy later in his speech stressed that this reaction underlined that Israel is a strong democracy.
Sarkozy's three-day visit, which started Sunday, is aimed at stressing the strength of Franco-Israeli relations, in contrast with the tensions that marked ties under former French president Jacques Chirac, perceived in Israel as being pro-Arab.
Sarkozy is the first French president to visit Israel in almost 12 years, and only the second to address the Israeli parliament after Francois Mitterrand in 1982.
On Monday morning, Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy toured Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis.
Later in the day he was scheduled to meet the parents of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinians near the Gaza Strip two years ago and who also holds French nationality.
On Tuesday, Sarkozy is to travel to the West Bank town of Bethlehem for talks with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and a visit of the Church of Nativity.