Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's insistence that Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" seems to rely on the certain knowledge that the Palestinians will never agree.
This demand is of recent vintage.
How recent? In 2006, after Hamas won the Palestinian elections, Israel demanded that the West insist on three conditions before dealing with it. Now known as the Quartet Conditions, they are still in effect today: "Hamas must recognize Israel, forswear terrorism and accept previous Palestinian commitments."
Note condition one. "Hamas must recognize Israel." Full stop. Not as a "Jewish state" or as anything else.
Like Jordan and Egypt, which signed peace treaties with Israel, Hamas is only asked to accord simple recognition. Of course, simple recognition is all Israel ever sought until now.
That should be good enough. I can't think of an example anywhere on the globe where one nation is required to accept another as anything.
Palestinians can (and most do) accept the reality of Israel. The Oslo breakthrough of 1993 occurred when Israel recognized the PLO in exchange for this pledge from Yasir Arafat: "The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security. The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338."
In all the years since, even during the horrific second Intifada, the Palestinians never retracted their recognition of Israel, and Israel maintained its recognition of the PLO as the "legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." Had either side renounced those conditions, there would be no peace process or even the possibility of a peace process.
But Palestinians have not recognized Israel as a "Jewish state" and no one should expect them to until the two sides enter "final status negotiations." Perhaps once Israel agrees to final borders, Palestinians will agree to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" within those borders.
But without any definition of borders and with Netanyahu committed to expanding settlements in the West Bank, how can anyone seriously expect Palestinians to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state"?
Would that Jewish state include Hebron and Ariel? Would it include territory in the Jordan Valley? Would it include Silwan in Jerusalem?
Would that Jewish state have any obligation to the Palestinian refugees?
Would its designation as "Jewish" remove any sense that the Palestinians are native to the land?
Acceptance of Israel as a "Jewish state" is a non-starter at this point. And Netanyahu knows it. If that is a precondition for negotiations, there will be no negotiations. Instead, there will be an agreement imposed by the United States or no agreement at all, and another war or two or three.
Again, I see nothing wrong with Israel demanding recognition as a Jewish state in the context of final status negotiations, just as it will demand control over Jerusalem and ironclad security guarantees and just as Palestinians will demand Israel's return to the pre-'67 borders. But not in advance of negotiations.
Like every other issue, it can only be addressed in the context of unconditional negotiations, which means no series of demands that must be met in advance of them.
It is not only Palestinians who have problems with the "Jewish state" formulation. Secular Israelis believe that the Orthodox rabbinate controls way too much of their lives. In Jerusalem the ultra-Orthodox are actually demanding (and may get) segregated public buses, i.e., separate buses for men and women. A desperately needed new parking lot recently opened only to have the religious authorities succeed in getting it closed on Saturday. The food police can shut down restaurants or shops that don't observe religious dietary laws (woe to the shopkeeper who has bread on his shelves during Passover). Not to mention the stranglehold the Orthodox rabbinate has over marriage, divorce, and citizenship.
Americans would never tolerate this. In fact, because we have a constitution and a First Amendment, even the most fervent Christian fundamentalist would not dream of demanding the kind of restrictions routinely imposed on all Israelis.
It is easy to imagine how formal recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" rather than as the "State of Israel" could be used to make life even more difficult for the secular majority of Israelis.
There is another thing wrong with the whole "Jewish state" demand; it is antithetical to Zionism.
Zionism is the self-determination movement of the Jewish people. That means that it is the Jews themselves who created their state and who define it. The "self" part of "self-determination" means that a nation does not rely on the recognition of other people to validate or legitimize them.
Why should Israel need Palestinians to recognize Israel's religious identity? Before Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister in 1992, Israel did not even recognize Palestinians as a separate people at all. In fact, even today, neocons in Israel and the United States insist that Palestinians are "just Arabs" who invented their Palestinian nationality as a response to Zionism.
But what difference does it make? So long as Israelis and Palestinians recognize their mutual rights to self-determination and security, either side can consider the other as anything it wants.
I don't know when the right-wing of the pro-Israel camp became so nervous and whiny. Of course, I grew up in the era (following the Six Day War) when Israelis were the tough guys in the region. The last thing they would have cared about was how they were defined by others.
But those were more confident days. The same people who say they need recognition of Israel's character as a Jewish state routinely liken the Jewish condition today to that of the 1940s, implying that neither the IDF nor a nuclear arsenal has succeeded in ending Jewish powerlessness. They are locked in a pre-1948 state of mind.
No, Israel does not need recognition as a Jewish state; its character is for citizens of Israel, not Palestinians, to decide. That is what Zionism means.
The only thing Israel needs from Palestinians is recognition of its right to exist in peace and security (which already was offered by both Arafat and Abbas) and ironclad security guarantees to ensure that a Palestinian state will not threaten Israel. That goes without saying; every peace proposal ever considered by Israelis and Palestinians contains those security mechanisms.
Of course, security is a two way street. That is why it is good news that the United States is coupling its demand for an end to settlements with the immediate easing of the blockade of Gaza.
Israel is saying that it won't let necessary goods into Gaza until Gilad Shalit is free, as if a suffering child in Gaza has anything to do with Shalit's imprisonment. Shalit should be released now. But the collective punishment of a million Gazans also must end. Now.
Arguing about what constitutes recognition is ridiculous. The only thing that matters is that both Israelis and Palestinians are safe, and feel safe, in their own sovereign countries. The rest is posturing.
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