JERUSALEM: Israeli President Shimon Peres privately opposes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying it obstructs peace talks, local newspaper Israel Hayom said Wednesday.

“In conversations held by Peres in the past weeks with senior diplomatic and political figures, he explained that this insistence by Netanyahu was ‘unnecessary,’ as he put it, since it could derail the peace negotiations,” the paper wrote.

US-brokered peace talks that began in July have faltered over seemingly irreconcilable demands from both sides, failing to bring any glimpse of a final agreement that would end decades of conflict.

Netanyahu has amplified calls for Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, a demand Palestinian leaders reject fearing this could preclude the right of return for Palestinian refugees who left or were driven into exile when the state of Israel was created in 1948.

The Palestinians recognized Israel as a state at the start of the peace process in the early 1990s.

Peres had not made his disagreement with Netanyahu public, Israel Hayom said, “so as not to undermine Israel’s uniform stance.”

Palestinians say Netanyahu’s focus on the “Jewishness” of Israel is a deliberate ploy to sideline more pressing issues in peace talks that were kick-started by the US.