Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at Bar-Ilan University. Photo: GPO.

JNS.org – Four years after a historic speech at Bar-Ilan University during which he first backed a two-state solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to the venue Sunday and said peace will only be possible when the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The “root” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “the profound objection by the hard core of Palestinians to the right of the Jewish people to its own country in the Land of Israel,” Netanyahu said at the 20th anniversary international conference of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.