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Source: https://www.cjnews.com/perspectives/opinions/steinberg-thinking-outside-the-israel-palestine-box
Mutual Recognition Never Happened, Palestinian Leaders Are Stuck in 1948
(Canadian Jewish News) Gerald Steinberg - With Knesset elections on April 9, for most Israeli political parties, the two-state formula has run its course without yielding any results. Proposed in 2002 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush and accepted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009, the hope was that the Palestinians would finally accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state in exchange for their own sovereign nation. But this never happened. Palestinian leaders are stuck in 1948, still hoping to reverse the creation of Israel altogether. Hamas and Fatah are also busy fighting each other. At the same time, terror and incitement continue, and Israelis are not convinced that the two-state approach will improve the situation (most think it will make things worse). The "international consensus" that presses Israel to take all the risks, while exempting the "powerless" Palestinians from any responsibility, has no traction in Israel. The writer, professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University, is president of the Institute for NGO Research.