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Israel's Unreasonable Demand
Asking Palestinians to recognise Israel as a Jewish state is like urging the IRA to see Northern Ireland as a Protestant entity
"The Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state." This is the mantra of the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been promoting this controversial idea as a condition of any peace deal.
But is such recognition valid, necessary, or even appropriate? This question will certainly remain at the heart of negotiations with an Israeli leadership that views such recognition as imperative. Although this is not the first time Israel has sought some form of validation, it varies from the past in stark and troubling ways.
In 1993 Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, called on the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Yasser Arafat, to recognise Israel as a prerequisite for signing the Oslo agreement and commencing negotiations between the two peoples.
Arafat delivered this recognition in an open letter, which Rabin accepted as sufficient – and reciprocated in kind with recognition of the PLO. It was a watershed moment in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the beginning of diplomacy between the two sides.
Recognising Israel's right to exist in peace and security was an existential question, and a necessary preamble to real and sustained peace between Israel and its neighbours. In so doing, the Palestinians had accepted the partition of their historic land and the two-state solution.
Recognising Israel as a "Jewish" state, however, is a question of national character, and is not relevant to the Palestinians living as a foreign nation outside Israel. This is a domestic issue and it is up to the citizens of every country to decide the identity and character of their own state.
Is the international community obliged to determine if Congo wishes to be called the Democratic Republic or Iran the Islamic Republic? No, this is something chosen – in the case of a democracy – by the citizens who live there.
The issue also goes deeper and challenges the demographic reality of the Israeli state and its democracy. The axiom of "two states for two peoples, one Jewish and one Palestinian", currently being peddled by Israeli spokespersons, distorts the demographic reality of Israel in favour of depicting a population that is entirely Jewish.
Although it was intended to be just that, the practicalities of creating that state on land already inhabited by Palestinians left Israel with a significant population that did not fit its Zionist ideology. The very principle of a "Jewish state" in this circumstance is altogether contradictory to Israel's claims to be democratic.
Moreover, by forcing the Palestinian Authority to recognise the state's "Jewishness", Israel is obliging the Palestinians to recognise a system in which Israel's Arab citizens are second class. Those people, who represent 20% of Israel's population, become the "non-Jewish" citizens of the "Jewish state" – a contradiction with serious implications.
Jewish entitlements over non-Jewish citizens would naturally follow. Israel would continue to allow the right of return for Jews from all over the world but not to Palestinians who lost or were stripped of their own homes and property. Nor would Israel's own non-Jewish citizens naturally be entitled to seek family reunification inside the Jewish state, or any other such privileges afforded to Jews in a "Jewish" state. By achieving such acceptance, Israel would not be forced to undermine its Jewish character by allowing the repatriation of Palestinian refugees back into Israel.
Most importantly, it is illegitimate for Palestinian sovereignty to be contingent on this recognition and it is morally repugnant that the Palestinians must negotiate their freedom in this way. It is comparable to the Belfast agreement having been contingent on the IRA recognising Northern Ireland as a "Protestant" entity.
The current Palestinian leadership headed by President Mahmoud Abbas has been absolutely right in refusing to recognise Israel as a Jewish state because it does not have the authority to speak for the Israeli people; nor should it acknowledge such undemocratic expressions of ethno-nationalism. The Palestinians should be left to decide what their own state will look like, not what the character of Israel's will be. At the end of the day this issue is for Israelis to decide and bear the consequences of, not anyone else.
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24 Comments so far
Show All"Asking Palestinians to recognise Israel as a Jewish state is like urging the IRA to see Northern Ireland as a Protestant entity"
But its what they must do or remain in the same situation.
This author seems to confuse assumed right with reality. It matters not one whit what the Palestinians do unless they can get the Israeli to agree to it.
MM"confuse assumed right with reality" We are, of course, familiar with that reasoning. Stay on the reservartion and don't make any more trouble. North America is ours now. Get used it you half naked savages. Reality is defined by size of your military and the worms eating your blackened heart.
No one is asking any one to stay on a reservation, that argument doesn't fly anymore. It's not 1965, go where you like and stop trying to blame everyone else. There aren't any "Palestinians" in the US.
Now back to the subject of this article....that is reality.
The reality MM is Israel with the support of the US wants everyone to play by their rules. You are correct. It is not 1965. Israel continues to grow while Palestine continues to shrink. When Gaza fights back with minimal armaments and few casualties, its big news and when Israel kills 450 CHILDREN (Who will of course grow up to be terrorists) its poor Israel protecting its citizens. Reality is dynamic MM. If you think reality is static you haven't paid attention to any history. Reality was different in North America in 1491. And Native Americans can go any where they wish and be second class citizens.
mightymite: “This author seems to confuse assumed right with reality.”
Israel wants Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in order to legitimize apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Such recognition by the Palestinians would be tantamount to national suicide.
As you say, Palestinians can’t bring down the apartheid regime by themselves. That’s why you should be posting in support of the BDS movement, instead of arguing that Palestinians need to accept the “reality” of apartheid.
This is absolutely correct. Israel is the victor in the war, and has the right to set any terms that it wants at all. Without restriction. The Palestinians can agree, or continue to suffer. But they no longer have a right to even have an opinion. They are a defeated people at the end of their road, without any resources or support, and no longer matter. The best thing would be for them to return home, but if they wish to stay west of the Jordan they have to accept Israeli terms.
What war? Israel has been successful in using military might provided by the US to murder Palestinians and steal their land.
By your logic, Hitler had every right to exterminate the Jews in Europe.
q
So if the U.S. wants Canadian land and resources, all we have to do is go in and take them? The Canadians would lose any "war," after all. Maybe we should annex Mexico, too, while we're at it? Cheaper in the long run than building those stupid walls. We could tell the Mexicans that they should move into South America. Kind of the way former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni did when speaking to a group of secondary school students in Tel Aviv. She said:
"And among other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Arab Israelis, and tell them: 'your national aspirations lie elsewhere.'"
http://www.france24.com/en/20081211-israeli-arabs-should-live-palestinian-state-livni
As you know, though, international law does not allow the winner of a war to take the loser's land or to violate the universal human rights of the losing side.
Yes, the curious thing is that it's quite likely that in person Tzipi Livni is a decent human being, but the drug of nationalism can turn a reasonable person into a remorseless professional murderer. Reminds one of something George Orwell wrote during WWII:
----
As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are ‘only doing their duty’, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any the worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil.
----
http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_eye
"...by forcing the Palestinian Authority to recognise the state's "Jewishness", Israel is obliging the Palestinians to recognise a system in which Israel's Arab citizens are second class."
Surely what this means is that Israel can legitimately expel their non-Jewish population.
That seemed to be what former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni had in mind when speaking to a group of secondary school students in Tel Aviv she said:
"And among other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents (note not even citizens of the state they are supposed to belong to) of Israel, those whom we call Arab Israelis, and tell them: 'your national aspirations lie elsewhere.'"
http://www.france24.com/en/20081211-israeli-arabs-should-live-palestinian-state-livni
----
One begins to grasp what one such "Palestinian resident", the elected member of Knesset, Haneen Zoabi meant when she said:
"The largest threat to Zionism is Democracy".
http://countercurrents.org/blumenthal240710.htm
"The right of return for Jews" - what a laughable notion. Returning to what? The only place European Jews have to "return" is Khazaria. And frankly, the Mizrahi and Sephardim can go with them, since they blew it in their old Arab host countries with the various zionist false-flag operations and bombings in 1950s Egypt and Iraq.
There was no Roman expulsion 2000 years ago. There was a voluntary traipsing around the world, wherever there was money to be made off the dumb locals, which continues to this day, and there was conversion for the benefits of life as a moneylender in Christian Europe. That's about it folks. Don't take my word for it, google your heart away, or even do some old-fashioned research in a reputable library.
Anyone who thinks the Zionists will be satisfied with historical Palestine is playing a dangerous game. Their softening up the US with their laser-like focus on the holocaust. When you repeat a lie often enough...
Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are not elected representatives of the Palestinians and have no authority to give away their land.
A two-state solution is no solution at all but instead is a ploy to legitimize incremental annexation of Palestinian territory by Israel.
The author says that “[t]he Palestinians should be left to decide what their own state will look like, not what the character of Israel's will be.” Au contraire, Israel belongs to the Palestinians as much as it belongs to the Zionists, so they will eventually help decide what the character of a state shared by both Muslims and Jews will look like.
when Israel recognizes Palestine as a state, they in turn should recognize Israel as one.
as for the demand of recognition as a Jewish state, it will provide 2 benefits to Israel. firstly, and subtly, give up the right of return of Palestinian refugees,(what rights of return do they have to a Jewish state?) which is sustenanced by the world community(the UN minus Israel).second, greatly weaken the equality requests of the Palestinians already living in Israel.
whoever said that Israel is not good at negotiation?
"This is absolutely correct. Israel is the victor in the war, and has the right to set any terms that it wants at all. Without restriction. The Palestinians can agree, or continue to suffer. But they no longer have a right to even have an opinion. They are a defeated people at the end of their road, without any resources or support, and no longer matter."
is this the relevant law between nations, or mikep's hope what it should be?
Actually, Israel does not have the "right to set any terms that it wants at all. Without restriction." That's why Israel and the U.S. keep up the charade of "peace talks" while Israel steals more land to put more "facts (nut-job Israeli squatters) on the ground" in hopes of making a Palestinian state impossible.
Even the U.S., Israel's partner in crime, can't support Israel's illegal land grabs because we have to at least pretend to respect international law. So we keep up the charade of calling for "settlement freezes" while ignoring Israel's relentless ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Palestinian land.
International law does not allow the "victor" to keep the land of the defeated or to "settle" on it. International law requires the "victor" to allow displaced refugees and their families to return to their homes: the Palestinians have undisputed "right of return" and the return of their property and land that has been stolen by Israel.
Israel and the U.S. have outsmarted themselves by, in fact, making a two-state solution impossible. A one-state solution seems inevitable, and the Palestinians will eventually be the majority there. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was only speaking the truth when he said that Israel will disappear.
He didn't mean that Iran would wipe Israel out; he was just observing that Israel, through decades of crimes against humanity, has ensured its own richly-deserved demise. It will be a great day when apartheid Israel gives way to a democratic state where all citizens are equally protected under the law, regardless of race or religion.
Israel, the only real Kleptocracy in the Middle East!
"The Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state."
"Hey, this hobnailed jackboot on my throat looks awfully familiar, are you Jewish perchance?"
We know that the zionists control 100% of our politicians in both houses of the US Congress. They control our media. They control our banks. They control our universities, our school textbooks... everything that has to do with molding the minds of the American people. They have no incentive to negotiate, and experience teaches us that they're just bullshitting everyone... wasting our time, our money, our "prestige" (lol). They've got Obama by the balls.
If the Palestinians want their land back, they need to figure out a to force the Israelis out. Only serious force will prove successful, and the Israelis pretty much have a monopoly on violence right now.
Those are the facts.
agreed, though it's very unfortunate for humanity.
on another scenario, if the host body is sucked completely dry, parasites will die away... whoever survives may be able to build a parasite-free world.
bligh4
Hell, I have no idea what this guy is talking about. The palestinian government (Hamas) does not now, nor have they ever, recognized Israel's right to exist.
First of all. Israel is occupying Palestinian land. Why should it deserve any respect from the Palestinians?
Second. Israel doesn't recognize the Palestinians right to exist on their own land.
Third. Israel's right to exist where? Israel continues demolishing Palestinian homes and farmland, confiscating Palestinian land, and ethnically cleansing them into little open air prisons. Israel wouldn't even accept the 1967 borders. Why should the Palestinian family that just got booted out of their house and thrown into the streets recognize Israel's right to take that property?
Fourth. Arafat, Hamas, Abbas, Fatah have all tried to negotiate with Israel, thus have accepted the legitimacy of the Israeli government. Since Israel can't stay still enough to stop confiscating land, colonizing territory and expanding the state, how can anyone recognize its borders?
Finally. Israel's change of tactic to now demand Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state is a step to ethnically cleanse the remaining 20% of Arabs within Israel. Why should the 20% of Israeli-Arabs in Israel recognize their own state as a Jewish state, let alone the Palestinians who are being ethnically cleansed from their own land by Israel?
Bullshit!
First, they are not required to acknowledge it as a legitimate state, let alone a Jewish one. Gandhi refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of Pakistan. It does not equate to wanting to kill and remove the inhabitants. That is just zionist projection.
Second, they have repeated over and over and over again the would accept a two-state solution. Everybody involved in negotiations understands this and what you are repeating is a a talking point for the sole purpose of public confusion to allow Israel's expansionist agenda.
Return of land, apologies and reparations are in order. Or, hashem forbid, a single state, multi-cultural society - one person, one vote.
the creation of the entity called Israel was a political error made by the global capitalist imperialists.
well, one of many errors, that is.
any solution should start with the recognition of that error. the philosophical wisdom that has led to that recognition will, in turn, shed light on how to correct the error.
but i'm not holding my breath for that to happen quick enough.