15 January 2015
The Israeli Demand that Palestinians Accept Israel as a Jewish State
Why the Deal-Maker for Israel is the Deal-Breaker for the Palestinians - and Vice Versa
Part 1 Reut and wrong
Gidi Grinstein is founder and CEO of the Re’ut Institute of Tel Aviv. The great thing about his article Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People / Palestine as the Nation State of the Palestinian People (Re’ut-Institute website), is that it takes as its subject the crucial issue at the heart of the Israeli conflict with the Arabs. The not-so-great-thing is that it does this with a shallow analysis that trivializes and distorts a serious matter.
The issue is the Israeli requirement that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish People. Prime Minister Netanyahu has regularly made this the fundamental building block of any 2-State Solution. For example:
There will be no Palestinian state before the state of Israel is recognized as the Jewish people’s state, and there will be no Palestinian state before the Palestinians declare an end to the conflict.
(Y.net.com 02/12/2012)
Gidi Grinstein finds that this Israeli demand is:a just one, yet non-essential, and therefore unnecessary.
Unfortunately, he supports this view with some silly arguments. Yet, Gidi Grinstein is both smart and substantial. Therefore, his use of explanations that trivialize the issue is worrying. For example, he says this:
