Until PA recognizes the JEWISH State of Israel, the conflict goes on

The American media seems shocked — shocked! — by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech calling for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the JEWISH State, giving it headline status.

For example, UPI headlined, “Netanyahu: Palestinians must recognize Jewish homeland,” and reported:

“For the [peace] process … to have a real chance of success, it is necessary to hear the Palestinian leadership finally say that it recognizes the right of the Jewish people to a state of its own, which is the state of Israel,” Netanyahu told Bar Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Sunday. “I hope that it shall be so, so that we can advance a real solution to the conflict.”

“After generations of incitement we have no confidence that recognition [of Israel] will trickle down to the Palestinian people. Therefore, we need very strong security arrangements, and to go forward without blindness,” the prime minister said.

“The root of the conflict is the deep resistance among a hard core of Palestinians to the right of the Jewish people to its own state in Israel.”

However, this is not a new demand for any Israeli prime minister including Netanyahu. He outlined the issue in a speech before Congress in May 2011:

“You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about.…

They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees.” …

President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people [and I said], ‘I will accept a Palestinian state.’ It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say, “I will accept a Jewish state’.”

The real issue is where the Palestinian refugees go. While the number of Palestinian refugees in 1949 was somewhere between 800,000 and 900,000, today the number is over 4 million. This group of refugees is the only example in history where the number of refugees has grown without a population shift (the UN counts the original refugees, their children, grandchildren, first cousins twice removed on their mother’s side, friends, etc., as refugees). Israel and other countries absorbed more than 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

One of the stated goals of the Palestinians is to flood Israel (within the green lines) with Palestinian Muslims. Being a democracy, if Israel allows herself to be flooded with millions of descendants of those 1948 refugees, she will cease to be the Jewish State, becoming instead just one more Muslim country in the Middle East.

Abbas claims to recognize Israel’s right to exist, but he refuses to recognize Israel as the Jewish state — per UN Resolution 181 (that original partition resolution passed by the UN in November, 1947, calls for dividing Palestine into Independent Arab and Jewish States). And that refusal is part of the Palestinians’ stated strategy to destroy Israel.

No Palestinian leader has ever recognized the right of Israel to exist as the Jewish Homeland. The charter of Abbas’ FATAH party does not recognize Israel’s right to exist in any form.

Compounding the problem is the fact that the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has never called for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the Jewish State. He has called for the recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a state, and has personally called Israel the Jewish State, but Obama has never called on the PA to recognize Israel as the Jewish State.

On the other hand, every Israeli prime minster after Rabin recognized the right to a Palestinian Arab state (sorry, leftists, but Rabin did not recognize the need for a Palestinian state).

This lack of recognition, and lack of demand by Obama, has stifled the peace process. For example, in October 2010, negotiations were going on to convince Netanyahu to extend the building freeze in Judea and Samaria. The Israeli Prime Minister made a very simple offer to the PA. If they were to recognize Israel as the Jewish State, Israel would extend the building freeze indefinitely.

As reported by Al Jazeera, the answer was a resounding no:

‘Netanyahu’s proposal met with swift rejection from senior Palestinian officials.…

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior official of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, described the settlement issue as “an aggression on Palestinian rights and land.”

“What Israel calls itself is an Israeli matter that does not concern us. The two issues are not related,” he told Al Jazeera in reference to Netanyahu’s condition that Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state.

Nabil Abu Rudainah, the spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said a return to peace talks required a freeze on settlement building by Israel.

“The issue of the Jewishness of the state has nothing to do with the matter,” he told the Reuters news agency.

According to Al Jazzeera, Abbas replied almost imminently with a resounding no.”

The words “I recognize Israel” is nothing but a ruse. Time and time again, the Palestinians have refused to recognize the JEWISH State of Israel. And without that recognition, none of the other issues will be resolved.

Jeff Dunetz, a conservative pundit, is a weekly Jewish Star columnist. You can follow Dunetz throughout the week at YidWithLid.Blogspot.com.