I need to set a couple of things for the record. I firmly believe that the only lasting option to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is a two-state solution. I see the continued construction of settlements in the West Bank as a major obstacle to peace. And, I often disagree with Netenyahu’s policies, and see him as doing little-more than maintaining the status quo in Israel. True progress on all fronts will have to wait until the next wave of political leadership comes in, sadly.
This all being said, while reading Jodi Roduren’s piece in the NY Times the other day, “Sticking Point in Peace Talks: Recognition of a Jewish State” I couldn’t help but be agree with BB (Netenyahu).
The core of this conflict has never been borders and settlements — it’s about one thing: the persistent refusal to accept the Jewish state in any border,” in a video statement to the Saban Forum in Washington. He added: “We recognize that in peace there will be a nation-state for the Palestinian people. Surely we’re entitled to expect them to do the same.”
Without recognizing validity in the narratives of each people, on both sides, there can be no lasting peace. You can’t live well with trust beside another without understanding and respect, and it doesn’t seem like this respect is anywhere in Israel’s near future.
The new sticking point in negotiations is a reasonable request, from BB, that the Palestinians in a two-state agreement recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Not a secular, democratic state, both Jewish and Arab, but a Jewish state . Yes, there are fundamental issues in calling Israel a Jewish and democratic state, which many thinkers are trying to solve. How can a state be truly democratic for all its citizens, Jewish, Christian, Arab, Thai, while being nationally Jewish and requiring that religion be a citizen’s identifier? How can the Palestinians living in Israel possibly pledge themselves to a country in which they live where the national anthem is about the Jewish 2000-year-old hope to be in our homeland?
Just to be clear here, I believe that Israel should continue to be a Jewish state. I’m just also cognizant of the flaws and problems with this view.
I can’t help but think that there are some who are less entitled towards criticizing Israel’s demand than others. For the Palestinians to argue that they should not be expected to recognize Israel’s Jewish nature is for the pot to call the kettle black.
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The Palestinians cite both pragmatic and philosophical reasons: They contend that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would disenfranchise its 1.6 million Arab citizens, undercut the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees and, most important, require a psychological rewriting of the story they hold dear about their longtime presence in the land.
First— the disenfranchisement of the Arab citizens. Yes, they are right. It does disenfranchise them. But for the Palestinian leadership to complain about this in negotiations for their own state? Would Jews be free to settle in a future Palestinian state, and be something more than dhimmis (an Islamic, second-class, “protected” status for Jews and Christians living in Muslim territories)? We’ve seen how that has worked out for Jews living in other Arab nations over this past century. And let’s not be under the illusion that Palestine would be anything other than an Islamic state. Palestinians, discuss a future for the Jewish people within a Palestinian Muslim state and then feel free to criticize us.
Second— the issue of right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees. In no other context is a person referred to as a refugee who never actually lived in the country. Yes, those Palestinians who once lived in what is now Israel and who fled out of fear for their lives are refugees. Their children and grandchildren, who only knew Jordan, Lebanon, or perhaps even Canada and the United States, by no other definition (based upon other UN refugee resolutions) are refugees. They are living in the diaspora, and in some cases, living in awful circumstances, due to their reluctant Arab hosts. Refugees they are not, and any ‘return’ to Israel ought to be up to immigration authorities. One could argue that there is a Jewish entitlement, for any Jew, to citizenship in the land of Israel, so there ought to be a Palestinian entitlement too. See point one.
Third— requiring a psychological rewriting of the story they hold dear about their longtime presence in the land. Yes, this rewriting would require you to acknowledge that two of us have ties to the land. Not one of us. Welcome to the club. We hope you’ll join those of us in favor of a two-state solution, where we acknowledge that both all sides have claims to the land and therefore ought to have some.
I yearn for peace and tranquility for Israelis and Arabs. Until both sides offer some empathy to the other, and send a little criticism their own way, a real solution cannot happen.
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