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Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-rebuffed-bid-to-find-mutually-acceptable-wording-on-jewish-state/
Abbas Rebuffed Bid to Find Mutually Acceptable Wording on "Jewish State"
(Times of Israel) Raphael Ahren - Israeli negotiators were willing to work with PA President Mahmoud Abbas during negotiations on the wording of a formula that would have described the Jewish people's and the Palestinian people's right to self-determination in precisely equivalent terms, and would have also included phrases to guarantee the rights of Israel's Arab minority. "The goal of the process was to receive mutual recognition for two nation states, and that both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have national rights," a senior government official said Thursday. The proposed phrasing was "based on total parity." The Palestinians, however, resolutely refused to accept the very concept of such recognition, he said. The Palestinian refusal to even consider working toward a formulation on this point may have been one of the factors that led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to announce on Thursday that he would push for a new Basic Law that would provide "a constitutional anchor for Israel's status as the national state of the Jewish people."