There is no point in
debating fringe leftists who are eager to undermine Israel's claims.
Retaining the Jordan Valley? Developing the Iron Dome? Insisting Israel
be recognized as a Jewish state? No, no, and no. (As for the Iron Dome,
that debate has somewhat subsided.)
They have focused their
efforts on countering Israel's opening gambits in the peace talks with
the Palestinians. Their immediate goal is to erode Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence on having the Palestinians accept Israel
as a Jewish state.
When former Knesset
Speaker Avraham (Avrum) Burg leads the charge, no eyebrows are raised.
He has become the ultimate naysayer, like that character in the
children's book. But when President Shimon Peres tells world leaders
that Netanyahu is delusional in making that claim -- a story Israel
Hayom reporter Shlomo Cesana broke on Wednesday -- this is just
scandalous. Is Peres really going to take such charged views to Davos
this week when he leads the Israeli delegation to the World Economic
Forum Annual Meeting? As a result of such statements, Israel's
governments might prefer to have his would-be successors chosen based on
their ability to be the government's lapdog; the government will seek
mediocre wheelers and dealers rather than independent thinkers, to avoid
a situation like the one Peres created.
But that is of secondary importance. The damage Peres could inflict has more pressing aspects.
Let's look at the
substance of Netanyahu's demand. By agreeing to the phrase "Jewish
state" -- which is mentioned in the U.N. General Assembly resolution
from 1947 on the Partition Plan -- the Arabs would essentially agree to
make no further claims. They will have withdrawn their demand for the
"right of return" for Palestinians whose families left Israel-proper
after 1947. So what's wrong in making that demand? Is there anything
delusional about it?
Toward the end of his
administration, U.S. President Bill Clinton was outraged when then
Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat denied
historical facts and said Jews did not have a place of worship on the
Temple Mount some 2,000 years ago. Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas has been repeating this assertion, saying he cannot
recognize Israel as a Jewish state because the Arabs lived here before
the Jews. The falsehood lives on.
Negotiations, by
definition, have multiple tracks. When a Palestinian state is founded,
Israel might claim that the new entity is just an autonomous region that
lies west of the Jordan River and is controlled by the Arabs of the
Land of Israel. So here is where the solution lies: Israel will not be
called a Jewish state; Palestine will be just one of the districts of
the Land of Israel where Arabic happens to be the official language. How
would Peres and Burg react to that?
Even if one were to
compromise even further, he or she were to reach the same conclusion.
Former MK and Minister Amnon Rubinstein, a law professor, recently said
that it was ill-advised to ask the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a
Jewish state. However, once such a claim was made, the Arabs' refusal
had severe implications. The fact that Abbas and his flock reject this
self-evident truth speaks volumes. Why? If the Palestinians insist on
having an Arabs-only state, Israel has every right to preserve its
predominantly Jewish identity. The Palestinian rejectionism should set
off many alarm bells.
Peres, Burg and their like-minded
cohorts could hurt Israel. Ironically, U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry has accepted the Israeli rationale. The Americans have said in no
uncertain terms that Israel is a Jewish state. If they recant that
statement, Peres and others like him might be complicit.
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