Many Israelis, including the writer of these lines, feel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinian leadership recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people is only a ruse designed to thwart a peace settlement by transferring responsibility for its failure to the Palestinians next door.

While one can understand the demand for security arrangements in the territories and on the Jordan border, why is it necessary that one nation recognizes the religious identity of the other? We can find an answer to this important question in a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), “The Leap of Faith: Israel's National Religious and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” This report, which summarizes research that maps the balance of power within the Religious-Zionist camp, and between it and the rest of Israeli society, gives details on a secret poll ordered by the prime minister’s office in 2010.

The survey revealed that the settlers living east of the separation fence are more likely to acquiesce to an evacuation without violence if the withdrawal is for a “genuine peace.” One of Netanyahu’s close associates noted to the composer of the report that the poll-takers discovered the most convincing step that would show that the arrangement constitutes a “genuine peace” in the eyes of this public is Palestinian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

Ofer Zalzberg, Middle East and North African analyst for the ICG, told Al-Monitor that the poll's findings strengthened the hunch in the prime minister’s office that Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish nation would convince a portion of Jewish skeptics that a permanent agreement with the Palestinians justifies far-reaching concessions.