PA President Mahmoud Abbas (right) with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: wiki commons.

JNS.org – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas shook hands on Monday for the first time since 2010 following a group photo of about 150 world leaders who gathered for the World Climate Change Summit in Paris.

Netanyahu addressed the conference on Monday afternoon. He was scheduled to hold high-level meetings in Paris with French President Francois Hollande, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the prime ministers of Canada, Poland, Japan, Australia, India, and the Netherlands.

The last time Netanyahu and Abbas met face to face was in 2010 during American-brokered peace talks between Israel and the PA. Those negotiations eventually ended in a stalemate over the PA’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and Israel continuing new construction beyond the 1967 lines.