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Ambassador worries for his family, says Israel will stand firm

The Israeli Ambassador to the southwestern United States, Meir Shlomo, has an app on his phone that alerts him when the emergency sirens sound in Israel, warning of a possible missile strike.

That has happened more than 1,000 times in the last few days, he tells KRMG, and for he and his wife, it's "an excruciating experience."

His children live in Tel Aviv.

Consul General Shlomo has served in his current position for nearly four years, and says he does have hope that eventually, there will be peace in his homeland.

But that's going to take a major shift in what Palestinian leaders tell their people, he told KRMG.

"If I had to put my finger on the single most important cause that prevents peace between us and the Palestinians, I would say it's a deficit of leadership. What the Palestinians really need is a responsible leadership that will be courageous enough to tell them that they can't do it 'my way or the highway.' They have to understand that it's not all or nothing, which is how they've been doing it for the last 56 years. They will get some of what they want, some they will not get."

Their leaders, he says, know that and admit it to the Israelis behind closed doors.

But when they stand before their people, they don't tell them the realities of the situation.

He says there's only one solution, ultimately.

"Everyone knows that the solution in this piece of land is to have two states, a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state," he says. "In my view, if the Palestinians would have accepted the partition resolution of the United Nations in '47, they'd be celebrating now 66 years of existence in a separate and independent state."

VIDEO: An Islamic thinker and former extremist says Hamas is the obstacle to peace

http://youtu.be/H2trFcUqTH8

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