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Wash Post: Recognizing Israel "As A Jewish State" Is A Brand New Israeli Demand
Here is some good reporting on Prime Minuster Netanyahu's demand that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state.
It is, as I've written all along, a new demand designed only to torpedo negotiations.
From the fine piece by Howard Schneider.
"It has never been an Israeli demand," said Ron Pundak, a member of Israel's negotiating team in Norway and now director of the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv. "When we negotiated Oslo, the issue of the characteristics of our state was never an issue."
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For one thing...when is the internal, self-chosen character of a country EVER something that another country has a say-so over?
Perversely, the demand that others recognize Israel as a "Jewish" state gives them a sort of "veto power" over whether Israel is, should be, and will continue to be a Jewish state.
The demand means, in effect, that Israel NEEDS this sort of recognition from other people. Weird.
June 24, 2009 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, its a bank-handed way of "solving" the issue of Palestinians' Right of Return. If you recognize Israel as a "Jewish State" instead of as a "State of All its Citizens," then ipso facto, Palestinians clearly have no right of return.
I am in favor, however, of recognizing Israel as a "State of Those Jews That I Dislike."
June 24, 2009 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
by not actively adopting a two-state solution, the israeli are shooting themselves in the foot thinking they are getting a pedicure.
eventually, there will be a one-state solution. here are the steps:
1. israel will drip by drip get all of jerusalem and the west bank (watch out what you wish for)
2. the palestinians will then demand equal rights, one man one vote
3. there will be one secular state
some prefer that step 2 be 'transfer of arabs' and step 3 be 'one pure jewish state'. that is 19th century thinking and not gonna happen in the 21st century. wake up!
June 24, 2009 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Even better: The perfidy of Israel in these negotiations will claim the so-called "moderates" who trusted the United States. Good bye, Mubarek and King Abdullah of Jordan.
June 24, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like the kind of outcome you might be hoping for, BP. What's your complaint? Soon enough, it will be a Palestinian state.
June 24, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
i'm hoping for a secular democratic state, neither jewish nor palestinian, where people are judged not by their religious identity but by their character.
self-identity solely based on race is an outmoded evolutionary strategy.
June 24, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, you mean a Western secular state.....like Israel claims it is already (but isn't).
June 24, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, it's outmoded if you're a member of the majority group. Then the answer is simple: Let everyone be "the same"--that is, "like us." Frankly, you could hope for the same thing for the U.S. Why can't all the Latinos just be...like everyone else? What does that mean, anyway?
IOW, nice ideal, but when you get down to the particulars--and the fact that everyone is "something"--then it becomes harder to implement.
June 24, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
humanity is slowly moving towards a point where external differences are acknowledged and celebrated but internally they no longer mean what they once used to. that is, people can be this or that but are not going to kill the other if that someone else is a different this or that. in other words, internally people are starting to lose their attachment to racial and ethnic identities and instead embracing their humanity as reflected in all. racial identity was once a necessary evolutionary strategy for group survival but now it is an obstacle to survival of the species.
this is the movement.
June 24, 2009 11:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps. We'll see. A number of theories that claimed to outline history's direction and goal are now pretty much in the dustbin of history. So I guess I can be "hopeful," but I'm not holding my breath, and I wouldn't try to impose that "solution" on anyone.
Maybe if humanity is confronted with an external threat--Martians-- or comes to REALLY see that we MUST work together to save the planet and the resources we need for survival, we MIGHT move in that direction. Or not.
It's worth noting that, once upon a time, Jews made a big bet on just what you're talking about--and got whacked. Hence the perceived need for a place where they are in the majority. And I sincerely doubt Palestinians are hoping for state in which they just happen to be the minority, but everyone is "the same." They want a Palestinian state.
But hey, I'll meet you over at the Congo table for lunch, where I can already hear the strains of kumbaya, and I'm sure you'll have a few remarks to make. Let's ask Art Appraiser to join us.
June 25, 2009 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin,
It may also be worth noting that Palestine is counted among the member nations of something called the League of Arab States.
June 25, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
You haven't noticed Africa lately, have you? Or do you prefer "brown people"?
June 25, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
SO when will the circumcision ceremony be, and is the West Bank the foreskin?
June 24, 2009 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get it. Are you talking about Muslim or Jewish circumcision?
June 24, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read the WaPo article. It doesn't say what you claim it does.
The peace process hasn't worked. That's obvious. It's also obvious that situations change, that what was true and might have worked 10 or 15 years ago may not be true or workable today.
Netanyahu feels that its failed because of the Palestinians' fundamental rejection of a Jewish right to a state in Palestine, a position which runs from Zhobotinsky through the Peel Commission, the principals of 1947, and the subsequent Israeli leadership to this day...and that it is not in Israel's interest to continue pretending that doesn't matter.
The Palestinians contend that the issues of interest to them - land for peace, division of Jerusalem, return of the refugees - do not depend on their recognition of the Jewish character of Israel...and that attempting to get them to acknowledge it will entirely derail the peace process.
That's what the article says...and it is a good article.
So the interesting question is why you distort it so, why you take the Palestinian position while claiming to be a supporter of Israel?
June 24, 2009 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ordinary: "Netanyahu feels that its failed because of the Palestinians' fundamental rejection of a Jewish right to a state in Palestine..."
You're right. People generally object when you bulldoze their homes and then claim that they never lived there. The ungrateful bastards.
June 24, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
No matter how many times I've showed you that yours is a completely one-sided, utterly biased view of the situation, you respond in exactly the same way.
Perhaps, you're suffer from brain damage?
June 24, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
You tow the Zionist line and call me "one-sided." Yes, one of us certainly has brain damage.
My refusal to sing the praises of the Kosher Sparta is frustrating to you. I get that.
My six year old also gets frustated when I disagree with him. But, then, he'll grow out of it.
June 24, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am definitely a Zionist but I can and do see the other side...and have articulated it many of my responses to you.
I chose to address Rosenberg in the manner I did because I wanted you both to see the context.
You don't have brain damage. You're just stupid.
June 24, 2009 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ordinary: "You don't have brain damage. You're just stupid."
Very mature. Very.
You say, "but I can and do see the other side...."
Really? Is that like the dark side of the moon? I have never seen the "other side" in your posts.
BTW, seeing the "other side" is not commiserating with Fatah when they battle Hamas. It's not bemoaning the execution of collaborators who sell targeting information to the IDF.
Seeing the other side, means stating without self-justifying untuousness, the real Palestinian grievance against Zionist Occupation.
That, like the dark side of the moon, is not in your posts.
June 24, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Learn to read. Then go back and read my posts on this issue.
June 24, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can't think of an example, can you? (Busted!)
June 24, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I said in one of my posts a few weeks ago (I don't remember to who it was addressed) that I don't see the conflict in moral terms. Rather its a fight between two peoples - condemned by history and culture to be incapable of sharing - for possession of a small piece of land to which each has good claim.
You're smug as well as stupid. A terrific combination.
June 24, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
You allegedly said: "Rather its a fight between two peoples - condemned by history and culture to be incapable of sharing - for possession of a small piece of land to which each has good claim."
Egads. You sound like you're writing a Daneille Steele novel. Even so, you comment is just piffle. Nobody is condemned by history to do anything. They choose to do it.
June 24, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Rosenberg. Here's a guy who feels Jews have no right to a state in Palestine. Do you agree? If you don't why not? What don't you like about his very basic argument? How far does your anti-zionism and anti-semitism extend?
June 24, 2009 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you want to respond to MJ, you need to just submit a comment. If you are trying to talk behind my back, it's best not to hit the "reply" button, because, you, I can still "hear" (read) you.
Now, about that brain damage you were alluding to...
June 24, 2009 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ordinary, mythbuster, ordinary, mythbuster, on and on and on. What a bore.
June 24, 2009 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Sorry. I know that I can't talk to him. I should have let it go.
June 24, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
How noble.
June 24, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink