For some reason, it appears that the Palestinians feel unable to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The transaction here is at its core to be “Land for Peace”, but if the Palestinians are unwilling to acknowledge Israel, the “peace” part becomes pretty iffy:

As Middle East peace talks churn on, Israel has catapulted to the fore an issue that may be even more intractable than old ones like security and settlements: a demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made such recognition the pillar of his public statements in recent weeks, calling it “the real key to peace,” “the minimal requirement” and “an essential condition.” Israeli, American and Palestinian officials all say it has become a core issue in the negotiations that started last summer.

But Mr. Netanyahu’s argument that this single issue underpins all others is exactly what makes it unacceptable to Palestinians. At its heart, it is a dispute over a historical narrative that each side sees as fundamental to its existence.

Critics skeptical of Mr. Netanyahu’s commitment to a two-state solution to the long-running conflict say that recognition of a Jewish state is a poison pill that he is raising only to scuttle the talks. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has repeatedly said that the Palestinians will never agree to it, most recently in a letter to President Obama last month.

The Palestinians cite both pragmatic and philosophical reasons: They contend that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would disenfranchise its 1.6 million Arab citizens, undercut the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees and, most important, require a psychological rewriting of the story they hold dear about their longtime presence in the land.

But Israeli leaders say that the refugee question can be resolved separately and that the status of Israel’s Arab minority can be protected. Without acceptance by the Palestinians that their neighbor is and will be, in Israel’s favored formulation, “the nation-state of the Jewish people,” Israelis argue that they can never be convinced that an agreement truly spells the end of the conflict.

“The core of this conflict has never been borders and settlements — it’s about one thing: the persistent refusal to accept the Jewish state in any border,” Mr. Netanyahu said last month in a video statement to the Saban Forum in Washington.

He added: “We recognize that in peace there will be a nation-state for the Palestinian people. Surely we’re entitled to expect them to do the same.”

Netanyahu probably isn’t mooting this in good faith.  He has made a career of putting road-blocks in front of the peace process, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

It’s why 73% of the famously fractious Israeli Jews support the idea.

Israeli thought has changed over the past 66 years, Golda Mier denied the existence of a Palestinian people, and this has not been relegated to the frothing at the mouth lunatics of Israel’s body politic. 

No one in Israel with any political power is claiming that they are Jordanians, or “Southern Syrians” any more.  (Though to be fair there are a bunch of profoundly stupid reactionaries in the United State, both Jewish and Evangelical Christians who do.)

The Palestinians, on the other hand, are unwilling to go much beyond a statement that Israel exists, and that this (currently) is a fact on the ground that they (grudgingly) accept.

Both sides need to acknowledge their respective personhoods and nationhoods in order for negotiations to be fruitful.

It’s not an end point, it’s a start point.