What if, in the current negotiations with Israel — and in the context of the creation of a State of Palestine — the Palestinians were to guarantee that they agree that the State of Israel will remain a Jewish state for as long as the Jewish people want it to be?
What if there were a public Palestinian commitment that Israel will remain a Jewish State regardless of how many Jews or Palestinians are its citizens and residents?
What if the issue of Israel’s being a Jewish state is de-linked from the question of numbers — that is, of how many of its citizens are Jewish?
The idea is to address the most basic and deepest concerns expressed by both Israelis and Palestinians. This could be the win-win scenario that Palestinian Ministers are all now calling for.
At its creation, Israel was proclaimed as a Jewish state (with certain values that are now identified as democratic), but not as a democratic state.
In recent years, the identification of Israel as also being a democracy is now an article of faith. But, the argument that Israeli is a democracy has led to concerns about demography — that is, how to maintain a Jewish majority within Israel so that Israel will remain both a Jewish and democratic state.
But, this open talk about demographics has led to Palestinian concerns about further population transfers under the guise of land swaps, as Israelis blithely and unblushingly discuss proposals to trade this area of East Jerusalem or that area of the Galilee for some of the enormous Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
This apparently unembarrased debate is based, at least in part, on the utterly unproven (if not totally fallacious) notion that all Arabs would prefer to be put together — even if this involves what looks like ethnic cleansing, Balkans-style, and certainly without the democratic consultation or consent of the population concerned.
The proclamation of the establishment of the State of Israel as (only) a Jewish state in 1948 does not seem to have been, as one writer has recently suggested, a bait-and-switch game. There was a strong socialist tendancy within the Jewish population of Israel at that time, and there was a great deal of sympathy and affinity for both socialist and communist ideologies. Israel’s Labor and Meretz-Yachad parties are still members of the Socialist International, and Israel used to be frequently represented at its gatherings by Shimon Peres, currently Israel’s President. (The Palestinian Fatah Party is also involved with the Socialist International.)
The first state to recognize the newly-created State of Israel was the U.S. — and the second was the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, Israel counted on relatively good relations with the Soviet Bloc — despite Soviet armament of Israel’s neighbors, particularly Syria and Egypt.
Until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the word “democracy” was not neutral. It signified taking sides in the Cold War. Even within the UN secretariat, it was not permitted to advocate “democracy” as a system of government until the early 1990s.
By the late 1990s, Israel joined the rest of the world in proclaiming its preference for “democratic” values. Israel is now routinely described as both a Jewish and a democratic state.
But, discussions about democracy have led to concerns about demography.
The democratic argument has become the demographic argument within Israel, where it has become absolutely normal, routine and commonplace to discuss the necessity of maintaining a Jewish majority within the State of Israel. Otherwise, it is said, Israel cannot be both Jewish and democratic. The assumption is based on numbers crunching — and the belief that voters will always vote along ethnic/religious lines. Without a Jewish majority, Israel risks being transformed … even into the 23rd or 24th Arab state, the logical extreme of this assumption. There is also a lot of extremely emotional discussion about how Jews cannot accept to be reduced to “dhimmi” status (an administrative invention during the Ottoman Empire to create a community of “protected” non-Muslims — who nonetheless must pay heavier taxes to maintain their protection).
And there is a lot of extremely anxious argumentation and textual analysis about how this or that Palestinian group or Charter or Covenant means that Palestinians are basically hell-bent on the destruction of Israel and the elimination of the Jewish State, if not the Jewish people — and, this line of anxiety argumentation goes, the Palestinians are simply being deceptive if they attempt to give any other impression.
The Palestine Liberation Organization, still recognized as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” despite predictions of its demise — accepted, in November 1988, UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947, which authorizes the creation of both a Jewish and an Arab State in the former British Mandate of Palestine, then there is absolutely no reason for Palestinians to be coy about affirming their support for the existence of the Jewish State, which is Israel.
This UN Resolution 181 is the international basis for the two-state solution that is now the stated goal of the U.S. Administration and its Annapolis peace conference (or “meeting”), whether or not the American negotiators say so. (Why don’t they say so, more explicitly? Probably because UNGA Resolution 181 also called for the internationalization of the city of Jerusalem — that is, for putting it under UN administration, at least for a ten-year period, which could, nonetheless, now be said to have expired.
It is not a good negotiating tactic, particularly in the present climate, to say that this position will not be repeated out loud until and unless Israel gives some concessions. This is not an honest bargaining chip.
All the Palestinian concern about being the weaker party in negotiations with Israel, and needing some international or third-party support to help put it on a equal footing with Israel in the negotiating process cannot be read sympathetically if the Palestinians cannot clearly repeat their basic commitments.
This position was a Palestinian commitment, pronounced by Yasser Arafat before the Palestine National Council in 1988, and there should be no hesitation to reaffirm it now.
In the present context, a useful addition that the Palestinians could make would be to pledge that from their side they guarantee the existence of this Jewish State, regardless of the numbers — meaning, regardless of whether or not the Jewish people remain the majority in Israel.
This could be the most effective deterrent to dissuade any further divisive and destructive — not to mention ugly and racist — discussions of “demography” and the Israeli-Palestinian problem.
Tags: Israel, Jewish State, Palestinians