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Jewish/Palestinian history without borders

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should return to the statement made in 2004 by Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, recognizing Israel as the Jewish state, while Israelis should recognize Palestine as the homeland of Palestinians.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat attends a meeting in his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah July, 19, 2004. [Palestinian President Yasser Arafat sought on Monday to defuse a leadership crisis triggered by unprecedented unrest in the Gaza Strip over corruption within his government and security forces.] - RTXMS1N
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According to reports on Feb. 23, the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of US Secretary of State John Kerry in formulating an agreement in principle. At the end of the meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace on Feb. 21, a senior official in the Palestinian leader’s party told the French news agency that the Palestinians rejected Kerry’s proposal regarding mutual recognition of two states for two people.

If a solution is not eventually found for the unequivocal demand of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding Palestinian recognition of Israel’s national identity, the negotiations will be recorded as an unusual phenomenon in the history of international conflict resolution. According to Netanyahu himself, in his Bar-Ilan speech of 2009 and on other occasions, the two-state solution is a prerequisite for preserving Israel’s Jewish and democratic character. This means that if negotiations aimed at promoting this solution hit a dead end due to Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, Israel will merge with Palestine and will thus lose its Jewish identity (or its democratic character). It appears that leaders who declare their willingness to make painful compromises, preserve national identity and maintain the demographic balance are handing over these essential interests to their rivals.

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