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Officials: Quartet Talks Failed over "Israel as Jewish State"
(Ha'aretz) Barak Ravid - The foreign ministers of the Middle East Quartet failed to reach an agreement on Monday surrounding the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and so did not issue a public statement after their meeting, Western diplomats and senior officials in Jerusalem said Tuesday. "The goal was to give each side something that was important to them," a Western diplomat said. "The Palestinians were supposed to get 1967 borders with land swaps and the Israelis wanted to receive in return the recognition of Israel as the Jewish homeland." A senior Israeli official said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would not allow the inclusion of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state in the concluding statement.