<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/17405eee-5a3e-4f71-bb1f-7a07a3fc0929/9C87E77F-EFBC-49E5-95DB-E2D8FBCF14CD/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195127517597&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull" href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195127517597&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull" style="font-size: 11px;">www.jpost.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195127517597&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull"><P>Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat appeared to soften his position Thursday but still rejected Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's call for explicit Palestinian recognition of Israel as "the Jewish state," saying he was baffled as to why Olmert wanted to "poke us in the eye" over the issue. </p> <DIV class="clearboth" id="artPhotoBlock"> <DIV class="ph_1"> <IMG width="224" height="157" border="1" rendermode="live" src="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?blobcol=urlimage&blobheader=image%2Fjpeg&blobheadername1=Cache-Control&blobheadervalue1=max-age=420&blobkey=id&blobtable=JPImage&blobwhere=1195127520474&cachecontrol=5:0:0+*%2F*%2F*&ssbinary=true" title="Palestinian negotiator Saeb..." /><DIV class="caption"><P>Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. <BR /><B> Photo: AP</B></P></DIV> </DIV> </DIV> <P>Asked by <I>The Jerusalem Post </I>whether he recognizes that the Jewish nation has historic rights here, Erekat said: "Israel has rights in the Middle East and the majority of Israelis are Jews. And when we recognized Israel, we recognized the composition of the state." </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195127517597&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">Erekat told the <I>Post</I> it was up to Israel to decide what to call itself, and that the Palestinians would recognize it accordingly. "Like the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said, "if you change your name to 'the Jewish state of Israel,' we'll call you that."</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195127517597&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">sources told the <I>Post </I></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195127517597&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">Olmert was confident that the joint statement would satisfactorily address the "Jewish Israel" recognition issue.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/9C87E77F-EFBC-49E5-95DB-E2D8FBCF14CD/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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