Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, is an old-fashioned right-wing Zionist, which is why he is leading the chorus demanding that Palestinians recognize Israel "as a Jewish state" as a precondition for a settlement freeze and negotiations.
Historically, right-wing Zionism -- in contrast to the socialist Zionism of David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and their allies -- preferred rhetoric to action. While the old socialists were building the physical infrastructure of the future state and then the state itself, the right-wing Zionists stuck to rhetoric. The left built the army, the roads, the farms (kibbutzim), the air force, the factories, even the nuclear deterrent, while the right issued fiery statements about the need for Israel to expand, rid itself of Arabs, and become purely Jewish.
Even in the wake of the Holocaust, with its survivors desperate to find a home, the right insisted that an Israel without the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem wasn't worth having. Not surprisingly, the current prime minister's father felt that way. He opposed the United Nations Partition Plan, which was Israel's birth certificate.
When a struggling Israel negotiated a multibillion-dollar aid package from Germany in the 1950's, essentially saving the state and a million Holocaust survivors from bankruptcy, the right's leader, Menachem Begin was vehemently opposed. "No blood money," he screamed at raucous rallies, indifferent to the fact that without the aid from Germany (to which Israel was more than entitled) the state could not survive.
The only thing that has changed in the years since is that now the Israeli right has a record of building something: settlements. Although they disdained building in the Galilee and the Negev, they have zealously embraced the idea of building in the West Bank. Today the settler movement is the physical manifestation of the word "No."
"No" to peace with the Palestinians, which ultimately will mean "no" to democratic Israel at all.
And that is why it makes such eminent sense that Oren is the leading proponent for the Netanyahu government's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel "as a Jewish state."
It's a new demand. Neither Egypt nor Jordan had to recognize Israel as anything but Israel when they signed peace treaties with it.
In fact, the phrase "Jewish state" first came into modern prominence because of a mistranslation. Theodor Herzl, who invented political Zionism, called his 1895 manifesto calling for a Jewish homeland Der Judenstaat which was mistranslated in English as The Jewish State. Actually, the very secular and assimilated Herzl called his book The Jews' State, meaning a homeland or state for Jews, not some kind of theocracy for the faithful.
And Israeli governments were more than content with that until Likud party prime ministers decided recently to demand that Israel must be recognized as Jewish by religion.
Obviously secular Israelis don't like that. The Orthodox Jewish authorities already decide who can be a citizen, who can marry, and who can re-marry if a partner dies.
Those American Jews whose Judaism derives from the paternal and not maternal side are not considered Jews, period. And they are ineligible to become citizens under the Law of Return. Other Jews can just become Israelis by simply landing in Tel Aviv and declaring that they want citizenship. Only Jewish orthodoxy is recognized in Israel.
In other words, the status quo is bad enough, even without the insistence that Israel be recognized "as a Jewish state."
Palestinians feel even more strongly. After all, there are a million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who would become second-class citizens under the new formulation. Additionally, that formulation precludes any -- even a token -- return to Israel by any Palestinian refugees or their progeny.
And that is why the "as a Jewish state" mantra was invented: to preclude an agreement with the Palestinians.
Here is Ambassador Oren in the New York Times on October 13th:
The core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the refusal to recognize Jews as a people, indigenous to the region and endowed with the right to self-government.... By urging the Palestinians to recognize us as their permanent and legitimate neighbors, Prime Minister Netanyahu is pointing the way out of the current impasse: he is identifying the only path to co-existence.
Actually, the "core" of the conflict was the refusal by Israelis and Palestinians to recognize each other's right to the land period. And that ended in 1993, when the Palestinians formally recognized "the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security." At the same time Israel recognized the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people (every prime minister since 1993 has recognized the Palestinians' right to a state).
In other words, the Palestinians have met Oren's demand that the Palestinians "recognize us as their permanent and legitimate neighbors" and he knows it. But, of course, neither he nor Netanyahu will accept "yes" for an answer. They are all about "no."
To their credit, however, the Palestinians seem not to be falling into this trap. Rather than having to face blame for holding up negotiations by not agreeing to Israel's latest demand, they tossed the ball right back.
Speaking for the Palestinians, senior negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo said that the Israelis could define their state any way they choose.
He said, "we recognize Israel by whatever name it applies to itself..."
The only condition is that the state they recognize would first define its borders. (After all, can anyone expect the Palestinians to recognize Arab East Jerusalem, Nablus, Hebron, Jenin, and Ramallah as part of a Jewish state?)
This is exactly right. It is up to Israelis to decide what kind of state they want to live in -- a secular democracy or a theocracy (the majority will obviously choose the first). The Palestinians have enough to worry about without defining Israel.
One has to hand it to Netanyahu and Oren. This time they have come up with the most bogus excuse ever for not negotiating. And it sounds so innocuous. It isn't.
The solution, however, is. Once borders are decided upon, Palestinians recognize Israel as the "State of Israel." Israelis recognize Palestine as the "State of Palestine." It's that simple.
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Israel was declared a Jewish state the day it was born: May 14 1948 and it was recognized as a Jewish state by the US that same day. See Harry Truman's letter of recognition.
Mr. Rosenberg pretends not to notice the elephant named Hamas. Palestinians (being short fro Arabs living in Palestine) are not united in recognizing right of Israel to exist, right of Israeli citizens to live in the way they decide. Thus, even if Mr.Rosenberg's definition of the essence on Israeli-Arab conflict it is not being resolved due to position of the Arab side. And the ball, figuratively speaking, been sitting on their side for last 17 years.
Israel withdrew from Gaza, only to be bombarded day in day out.
Israel withdrew from Sinai, only to be terrorized day in day out.
Israel withdrew form Lebanon, only to be bombed and terrorized.
How is Israel supposed to trust the endless cries of wolf?
But, lets pretend that what you say is so, aren't you part of the ones that claims that two wrongs don't make a right?
They OFFERED recognition if Israel... And continued to change the demands
Neither side in the conflict has been an honest player but, of course, only Israel is "wrong"
The Israelis, and me, don't believe them. Their actions have spoken louder than their words.
If you consider their words worthless, then this is nothing but a pretext.
The same is true for the many nations which have a form of Christianity as their state religion and for the five (Bhutan, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Tibet [The Government-in-Exile]) which are officially Buddhist
Why the "horror" in recognizing that Israel, which does NOT have an official state religion, has a specifically Jewish character?
At least TRY to be honest
Neither side in the conflict has a record of acting in good faith but, of course, only Israel is "wrong"
"Jews and Arabs are all really children of Abraham and all have preserved their Middle Eastern genetic roots over 4,000 years," said one of the scientists involved. Harry Ostrer, director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University School of Medicine. The team analyzed regions of the Y chromosome in 1,371 men from 29 populations worldwide. The Y chromosome passes largely unchanged down the male line.
The results, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that the difference between Jewish and Arab populations is extremely small, considerably smaller than that between North and South African populations, for example. The study confirms that both Arabs and Jews owe their genes to a common ancestor population that predated the Jewish religion.
You do know that regardless of the many different definitions of Jewish, it goes far beyond a religion.....something difficult for nonJews to understand, hence the many different definitions of it.
"... owe their genes to a common ancestor population that predated the Jewish religion"
You mean we share same ape-man as our ancestor? And what 'bout you? Are you in the same branch or not?
History has shown us that the Palestinians have not given up their fight to destroy Israel that began in 1947 (before Israel even existed) and continues through the election of Hamas to the present day. To ignore this desire of the Palestinians to see Israel destroyed is to ignore a key part of this conflict.
Obviously there is no possible way they can.
Israel is occupying and destroying Palestine.
Reversing the truth fools nobody any more.
election of Hamas
Hamas' firing of rockets into Israel to kill Israelis
The demand of the right of return
The refusal to negotiate
the refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state
The ongoing BDS movement.
The Palestinians can destroy Israel if they succeed in moving millions of Palestinians into Israel and seizing control of the government through democratic means.
TRUTH (Ambassador Oren): " […] recognize Jews as a people, indigenous to the region and endowed with the right to self-government."
DISINFORMATION (MJ Rosenberg): "Those American Jews whose Judaism derives from the paternal and not maternal side […] are ineligible to become citizens under the Law of Return."
TRUTH (the Law of Return 1950, 1970 amendment, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2001/8/Acquisition%20of%20Israeli%20Nationality): "[…] the right to immigrate under this Law has been extended to include the child and the grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew."
DISINFORMATION (MJ Rosenberg): "[…] there are a million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who would become second-class citizens under the new formulation."
TRUTH (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovakia#Demographics_and_languages): "The majority of the inhabitants of Slovakia are ethnically Slovak (85.8%). Hungarians are the largest ethnic minority (9.5%)."
No other nation is required to offically recognize Israel as a Jewish State...none, and none officially do, including the US.
So, since Israel has been recognized since 1993 offically by the Palistinians, it simply is another game...take a mile, give an inch strategy that the Israelis and all of thier complict partners, organizations, ideologys, and nations have been playing for as long as the illegal occupation has been going on.
However...there is no such thing as a theocratic democracy. Those two ideologies conflict in so many ways.
Ask yourselves...if Israel makes thier citizens swear an oath to an ideology...who is 'Jewish enough' will be the next question. This is the way all utopias go, and it is how all of them fail...who is perfect enough.
Remember that.
No other nation is actively trying to destroy Israel.
Kindly inform the readers and commentators of the Huffington Post, which other nation is trying to destroy Israel.
Thank you kindly.
What this means is that there is a special burden on those who criticize Israel to do so carefully and clearly, to explain in painstaking detail that their quarrel is with the "policies" of a legitimate Jewish nation, not with its existence, and not with the Jewish people itself, or with their existence.
The lack of this clarity (it is often unclear here whether an individual is opposing "Israeli policy" or whether they want Israel "wiped off the map", and this lack of clarity often seems deliberate) contributes heat without contributing any light on these issues.
At any rate your comment has nothing to do with the central question of my post.
No, that is paranoia propagated via constant propaganda by Israel that it is under the threat of being wiped off the map while if ironically wipes Palestine off the map. Israel is in no danger of being "wiped off the map" - it never has been, but scaring it's citizens with holocausts every day works well for garnering support. Kind of like Bush threatening the American people with mushroom clouds.
Basically, your saying it should get special treatment. Kind of like affirmative action for nation-states. But labeling it as Jewish will not protect it from criticism it has been making that conflation since day one.
It, most likely, is paranoia of a one-state, non-jewish, multi-cultural state with equal rights for all, which at this point looks inevitable. It won't be able to stop the flow of history in doing away with such nonsensical ideas. It's only a matter of time.
In the US, the only people who would like to claim the US as a nation of one people or religion or other is the Klan and similar groups; They would like to see (and have worked towards) branding the US a Anglo Saxon, Christian nation.
Most Americans simply chuckle at this notion (after the initial disgust) in that these people miss what is so great about the US, that no one group has political or national advantage over another. There is no state religion, and no state ethnicity, and ALL people are afforded the same rights and status.
It is simply not possible to claim that a nation is a western style democracy (or a democracy at all) and simultaneously claim that the nation is a (fill in your favorite religion or ethnicity) state. It does not matter what Ethnicity is in question, under any circumstances.
If Israel goes down this road, they can literally no longer claim to share values with the US or any other actual democracy.
They wish you to believe as they do, but they won't politically force you, or deprive you of any rights as the result of your differing beliefs, nor does the constitution of the United States allow them, or anyone else to ever try..
Face it. The people running Israel are not in sync with American values, or the values of virtually any other western democracy.
Regarding the History of the US as compared to the History of the Jewish people, bad things happened in the course of both. That is, of course, no justification for such things continuing, and therefore, as the Geneva Convention assert, All settlements are illegal, as are slavery, segregation, and many other sins left behind by the civilized world.
We American are totally into separation of religion and state .
We are proud of that.
Your country is completely opposite.
And yes, lets cut off the money. Not even because of the repugnant loyalty oath, but for willfully breaking the geneva Convention with the settlements.
They are the source of most terrorist recruiting and funding in the middle east, and only serve to hurt Israel, the US, the region and elsewhere.
Thankyou all in advance.
Can you, perhaps, educate me, or is it that no such condition is applied to anyone other than the Palestinians, who are not, yet, even a state?