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The US State Department has rejected Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s call to condition any final deal with Iran over its nuclear program on the Iranian regime recognizing the State of Israel. During a Saturday press conference State Dept. spokeswoman Marie Harf abruptly rejected the suggestion, stating “this is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue.” “This is an agreement that doesn’t deal with any other issues, nor should it,” Harf added. …

“We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel,” Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared on Saturday. Abbas’s statement came at a meeting of Arab foreign ministers and was quoted by Channel 10 News. At that same meeting, the foreign ministers announced their “categorical rejection of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.” According to Channel 10, Abbas said in his remarks at the meeting that the security coordination between Israel and the PA would be suspended unless peace negotiations resume. …

Hamas will never recognize Israel and will not accept the conditions laid out by the Middle East peacemaking Quartet, according to the Islamist movement’s deputy leader. Speaking late on Saturday, Mussa Abu Marzuq said Hamas, which recently signed a reconciliation deal with the Western-backed Palestinian leadership in Judea and Samaria, would never agree to recognize Israel. “We will not recognize the Zionist entity,” he said at a press conference in Gaza City. […] “Hamas rejects the Quartet’s conditions because it denies some of our people’s rights,” he told reporters. “We will always refuse any conditions that deny our Palestinian rights.”...

Oct. 22, 2003 Poll: 59% of Palestinians support continuation of terror after state is created By JANINE ZACHARIA WASHINGTON Fifty-nine percent of Palestinians believe that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad should continue their armed struggle against Israel even if Israel leaves all of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, and a Palestinian state is created, a new survey shows. Similarly, 80 percent of Palestinians say that, under those circumstances, the Palestinians should not give up the "right of return." The poll of Palestinians, Israeli Jews, and Israeli Arabs was released in Washington on Wednesday by Itamar Marcus, founder...

Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Thursday afternoon that it is a "mistake" for people to raise the issue of whether Palestinians would agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Israeli government has insisted that Palestinians do so as part of an agreement, while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the nations of the Arab League have all rejected Israel's demand. "I think it's a mistake for some people to be raising it again and again as the decider," Kerry said, when asked to clarify the official position of the Obama...

“When you say ‘accept Israel as a Jewish state,’ you are asking me to change my narrative.” – Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat. “Every state has created narratives which help its citizen to identify with national culture. These narratives are the foundation on which the state is built.” – Erica Mukherjee, Perspectives on Global Issues Secretary of State Kerry’s well-meaning attempt to forge a framework agreement between the Israeli and Palestinian governments is based on the conventional Western perspective of conflict resolution. Western democratic nations that sign treaties overwhelmingly respect the words on the paper they sign. But what happens...

Over the weekend, the Obama administration began walking back its support for Israel’s demand that the PLO recognize Israel as the Jewish state. At a State Department media briefing on Friday, State Department Spokesperson Jennifer Psaki said, “If you look at the issue of a Jewish state and whether Israel will be called a Jewish state, that’s been our position, as you know, for a long time, but that doesn’t reflect what the parties will agree to, which I know you know.” In other words, the US is neutral. It’s fine with Washington if the PLO accepts Israel’s right to...

Arab foreign ministers on Sunday rejected Israel’s demands that the Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state, saying such a move would undermine the rights of Palestinian refugees. In a resolution released at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo, the foreign ministers called the issue of Palestinian refugees an integral part of a comprehensive and just peace. It blamed Israel for the floundering of peace negotiations. The Arab statement offers strong backing to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who said publicly last week he will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state despite facing strong international pressure. Abbas did...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu promised not to evacuate West Bank settlements, even as he acknowledged that some of them would not be within Israel’s permanent borders if a final-status agreement was reached with the Palestinians. “There won’t be an evacuation, I don’t intend to do this. I’ve said this,” Netanyahu told Channel 2. It was one of three interviews he gave to the Israeli media, including to Channels 1 and 10, that were aired on Saturday night after he returned from a five-day trip to the United States last week. It was the first time in over a year that...

The United States believes there is no need for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of a peace agreement, State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday. Psaki, who spoke to the PA-based Arabic-language Al-Quds newspaper, said, “The American position is clear, Israel is a Jewish state. However, we do not see a need that both sides recognize this position as part of the final agreement.” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been adamant on the PA recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, explaining that the Arabs’ refusal to recognize Israel stands at the heart...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has flatly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Such recognition is a key condition that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded for reaching an acceptable peace agreement on a two-state solution with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu explained the importance of such Palestinian recognition, which would amount to an expression of the Palestinians’ good faith intention to truly end the conflict by accepting Israel’s right of self-determination to once and for all live in peace as the Jewish state its founders envisioned: “The central question at the end is...