Senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

A senior member of the Palestinian Authority, who has been part of the negotiating team in discussions with Israel for the past eight months, told Israeli Army Radio on Monday that the PA will never acknowledge the Jewish character of Israel, Israel’s Ma’ariv reported.

Nabil Sha’ath, known to be a confidant of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, brushed aside allegations that the PA’s intransigence on the issue of recognition is the reason for the current impasse between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

The Palestinian official said, “Due to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s fixation on us recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, none of the other unresolved questions have been addressed.”

“For example, what will you do with the 21 percent of Israel’s citizens who are Christians, Muslims or Palestinians? Because of this issue, we cannot recognize Israel as being a Jewish state,” he said.

Israel has insisted on recognition of Israel as the Jewish state as a condition for a peace agreement and the PA has consistently rejected the notion.

Sha’ath also reminded the Israeli government about its promise to release dozens of convicted terrorists from Israeli prisons at the end of the month.

“We agreed on 104 names of prisoners, including Israeli Arabs, and you need to fulfill your obligation since we in return promised to not to go directly to the U.N.,” the PA negotiator said.

In 2012, the  United Nations General Assembly voted by an overwhelming majority — 138 to 9 (Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, Palau and United States), with 41 abstentions — to accord ‘Palestine’ non-Member Observer State status.

As one of the preconditions for agreeing to arbitrate peace talks between Israel and the PA, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry extracted a promise from the PA to hold off on any more unilateral appeals to agencies affiliated with the UN throughout the duration of the negotiations.