On the Jewishness of Israel

This story began with the emergence of the Zionist movement and their determination to establish a Jewish state in the Promised Land, also known as Palestine, at the expense of its original inhabitants, the Palestinian people. This story took on a practical form with the first Jewish immigration to Palestine. Soon after, our story took a dangerous turn for the worse when the Balfour Declaration was issued in the second week of November 1917.

The Balfour Declaration gave the land known as Palestine to a people who were not deserving of it. The story came full circle when the Zionists and their supporters refused to acknowledge the existence of the Palestinian people in their claim that Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land”.

Even when Israel recognised the Palestinian people with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, it merely referred to one political organisation as the representatives of the Palestinian people without acknowledging their rights. The Palestinians, however, recognised Israel’s right to exist and its right to peace and security.

The story took a tragic turn when the United Nations passed resolution 181; allocating 55 per cent of the original land to the Jewish state and a mere 44 per cent for the establishment of the Palestinian state. As for Jerusalem, it was declared an international zone separate from the two entities. Although Israel considers itself to be the Jewish state and the representative of all Jewish people around the world, it did not demand international recognition as a Jewish state as a condition to any agreement until the Annapolis Conference in 2007.

There are Palestinians who have recognised the Jewishness of Israel in the Geneva Convention signed by Israeli and Palestinian officials in 2003, including the current secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), who has recently announced his rejection of Israel’s Jewishness without rejecting Geneva’s principles which stipulates that “both peoples, the Jews and the Palestinians, have equal rights to a state”.

This declaration does not change the ugly truth “of the prejudices working against the people’s equal rights in both states”. We all know that the text of the Balfour Declaration clearly states; “no action shall be taken which may prejudice the rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” We know that the mere existence of this sentence did not help and that it served as a cover for the uprooting and expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homeland as well as the many massacres that were committed against them. When it must be stated that no prejudices should be carried out against an indigenous group of people, what this does in actuality is open the door to their subjugation.

There is a small group of Palestinians who have been secretly writing to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asking him to recognise Israel as a Jewish state or find a solution to the Palestinian issue. Thank God that these individuals are not close to the president because they believe in the validity of Kerry’s Roadmap for Peace, which declares that there shall be two states; one that is a Jewish state and another that is Palestinian. Some of these individuals do automatically reject the notion of Israel’s Jewishness and state that they need further clarification as to what this truly means; however, is there any other way to interpret this? Can there be a legal basis for such things? Does Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state imply that no one except for Jews has the right to live there? They do not reject Israel’s demands when it comes to this issue and instead ask for clarification as to what recognising Israel’s Jewishness truly means.

There are also a few Palestinians who believe that reaching a Palestinian consensus to recognise Israel (and its Jewishness) will put the ball in Israel’s court and they are betting on the likelihood that this will embarrass Israel. The Palestinians have made many concessions, especially when it comes to the refugee issue, which is an issue that the Israelis interpret differently. Israel insists that it is a democratic and Jewish state but where do the Palestinians fit within the framework of this state? Will they be expelled voluntarily or by force? There is also the possibility of land and population swaps occurring in agreements such as the one that is favoured by Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman, which he considers a pre-requisite to accepting Kerry’s plan.

Another option is the Palestinians will become enslaved second or third class citizens under a one state solution or treated as minorities with supposed equal rights in the Jewish state.

If the Palestinian leadership agrees to the Israeli government’s demands for recognising Israel as a state for Jewish people around the world in exchange for a Palestinian state resulting from this alleged “Peace Process”, they will receive only a portion of the West Bank and will be giving up most of Jerusalem. They will only be able to absorb a small fraction of the Palestinian people because they will have adopted the Jewish narrative of the conflict, which is based on the idea that Palestine is Israel and that the Jews liberated it in order to establish the state that was promised to them since time of Solomon III.

If this were to happen, the Palestinian victim would give legitimacy to its Israeli executioner, who will never be satisfied with the whole world’s recognition of its state until the Palestinians recognise it. This is why Netanyahu’s government has focused so much of its attention on the Palestinians’ recognition of Israel’s Jewishness.

Moreover, Palestinian recognition of Israel threatens to falsify the past and is, in itself, a way of admitting that Palestinians were wrong in their narrative all along. By consequence, this could open the door to calling off the Palestinian right of return as well as deny Palestinian citizens of Israel their right to live equally among those who stole the land. Furthermore, this will open the door for further discrimination, apartheid and the expulsion of the remaining Palestinians because the Palestinian leadership will have acknowledged that they are outsiders and that the Jews came to liberate their land from them.

What makes the above points valid is that the Zionist settlement expansion project has not slowed down or halted in recent years. On the contrary, it has become more extreme, marked by Israel’s unwillingness to compromise or recognise the bare minimum of Palestinian rights. The implications of granting Israel recognition as a Jewish state cannot change even if it is coupled with phrases such as “without prejudice” or “for all citizens” because they are phrases that are aimed at legitimising Israel’s former crimes while also opening the door for future crimes. Israel is the embodiment of a racist settler-colonial project and any attempts to gain international legitimacy as a Jewish state serve to strengthen and deepen this project. Therefore, it does not make sense to attempt to play this game in the Zionist playing field nor does it make sense to attempt to embarrass Israel in this way. What we need to do first is dismantle the colonial project, only then can we discuss people’s equal rights.

As for the insistence that the partition plan outlined the establishment of a Jewish state, my response to this is the following; the partition plan was speaking exclusively in regards to Jews in Palestine and not of a state for all Jews around the world. The Jewish state would have included 498 thousand Jews and 407 thousand Arabs whereas the Arab state would have included 725 thousand Arabs and 10 thousand Jews. As for Jerusalem, the plan states that its population would include 100 thousand Jews and 105 thousand Arabs. Anyone who wishes to speak of the partition plan must look at all of its components and not select parts of it.

What is significant in this context is that when America first recognised Israel, it received a telegram dubbing the country as a Jewish state. The American president at that time, Harry Truman, crossed out the word Jewish with his own hand and wrote Israel instead, which shows that the idea of Israel as a Jewish state was rejected at that time even by Israel’s closest allies. This action is the complete opposite of the current American president, Barack Obama, and his decision to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. In doing so, Obama is going against the very nature of the American constitution whose democratic values reject racism and discrimination on the basis of religion.

President Mahmoud Abbas’s repeated comments that Israel may call itself a Jewish state or anything it pleases and that the Palestinians can recognise it on this basis if the Arab League and the UN agree, is completely opposite from the Palestinian people’s viewpoint. Abbas’ comments that the right of return will be recognised only if “Israel agrees to it” is in contrasts with the Palestinians’ continued demands that Abbas not recognise Israel as a Jewish state.

The Palestinians will always reject this point even if Israel gains this recognition from the rest of the world. Such viewpoints encourage those who seek to break the Palestinians’ will and refusal to adopt the Zionist narrative of the conflict.

Translated from As Safir newspaper 11 March, 2014

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.