Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. Congress on Tuesday that it is his responsibility to lead the Israelis to peace, and he is ready to make "painful compromises" for peace.

"The peace agreements between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan are vital, but they're not enough," Netanyahu told a joint session of U.S. Congress. "We must also find a way to forge a lasting peace with the Palestinians."

"I'm willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace," he said. "As the leader of Israel it's my responsibility to lead my people to peace."

"Now, this is not easy for me, because I recognize that in a genuine peace, we'll be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland," he added.

The prime minister alleged that all six Israeli prime ministers since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993 agreed to establish a Palestinian state, but peace fails to come because "so far the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it."

"You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It's always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about," he said.

In his speech on the Middle East and North Africa last Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama envisioned two states for two peoples in a lasting peace -- Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people.

Netanyahu challenged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to stand before his people and say, "I will accept a Jewish state."

For the Palestinians, this action means denying the right of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants, displaced in wars between Israel and Arab states, to return to their homeland in Israel.