Soccer Dad

Accepting jewish history; accepting israel

In a departure for the New York Times op-ed page, they included "An end to Israel's Invisibility" by Ambassador Michael Oren. It's a case for Israel being recognized as a Jewish state by the Palestinians as a condition for peace.

Affirmation of Israel's Jewishness, however, is the very foundation of peace, its DNA. Just as Israel recognizes the existence of a Palestinian people with an inalienable right to self-determination in its homeland, so, too, must the Palestinians accede to the Jewish people's 3,000-year connection to our homeland and our right to sovereignty there. This mutual acceptance is essential if both peoples are to live side by side in two states in genuine and lasting peace.

So why won't the Palestinians reciprocate? After all, the Jewish right to statehood is a tenet of international law. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 called for the creation of "a national home for the Jewish people" in the land then known as Palestine and, in 1922, the League of Nations cited the "historical connection of the Jewish people" to that country as "the grounds for reconstituting their national home." In 1947, the United Nations authorized the establishment of "an independent Jewish state," and recently, while addressing the General Assembly, President Obama proclaimed Israel as "the historic homeland of the Jewish people." Why, then, can't the Palestinians simply say "Israel is the Jewish state"?

Ambassador Oren answers:

The reason, perhaps, is that so much of Palestinian identity as a people has coalesced around denying that same status to Jews. "I will not allow it to be written of me that I have ... confirmed the existence of the so-called Temple beneath the Mount," Yasir Arafat told President Bill Clinton in 2000.

Matthew Yglesias, recently returned from Israel as smug and incurious as ever responds (via memeorandum):

The point is that bringing up this sort of demand to a foreign audience is the sort of thing you do when you're not really interested in having talks move forward but are looking to avoid the blame for breaking them off. People looking to make a deal work talk principles rather than positions.

If Yglesias knew anything, he'd know this is a principle.

Here is article 20 of the Palestinian National Charter:

The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

Palestinian nationalism is predicated on the denial of Jewish nationalism. So the question is have the Palestinians given up that principle. Because if they haven't, no number of concessions will be enough. As long as the Palestinians continue to deny the historical and legal bases for Israel there will continue to be grievances about Israel's existence.

Ari Shavit, a columnist for Ha'aretz, but one who retains some sanity gives the reasons why Oren is right. (via Daily Alert Blog) I won't quote them all, but I especially liked this:

Third reason: The avalanche will be stopped. Over the past 20 years, a grave process has been underway. As Israel continues to recognize more and more of the Palestinians' natural rights, its own citizen's natural rights are being abrogated. Its ideological concessions do not work for it, but against it. When Ehud Olmert's Israel turns out to be less legitimate than Yitzhak Shamir's Israel, there is no true incentive to continue to give in. Only recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people will stop the avalanche and create mutual legitimacy - Israeli and Palestinian.

I am not sure that I necessarily agree with his last sentence. But this is what an honest Israeli leftist has to acknowledge. That even after 17 years of concessions - often dangerous concessions - it's ridiculous that Israel is more of a pariah now than it was when the peace process began. If Yglesias were intellectually honest, or even curious, he'd have reached similar conclusions. But then his trip to Israel was simply to reinforce his prejudices and provide a patina of authority to his already accepted ideas; not to challenge his own thinking.

Crossposted on Yourish.