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Netanyahu Cool to Arab Land-Swap Initiative
(Washington Post) William Booth - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel and the Palestinians could not achieve a peace deal based on land swaps alone and insisted that the most important thing is for Palestinians to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state. "You saw what happened when we left the Gaza Strip. We evacuated the last settlers, and what did we get? Missiles," he said, referring to Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. "The root of the conflict is not territorial," Netanyahu said. "The Palestinian lack of will to recognize Israel as the national state of the Jewish people is the root of the conflict....Until the Palestinians recognize our right to exist as a national state - no matter what the borders - and until they declare that the conflict is over, there will not be peace."