by Zalman Shoval
As
the (justified, in my opinion) mini-storm over this issue of emigration
from Israel erupted last week, Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who is
staying in Washington, decided to air his position on the diplomatic
process.
"My father
didn't come to Haifa from the Budapest ghetto to get recognition from
Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas]," Lapid told
the Bloomberg news outlet.
Harsh words, Mr.
Lapid. And yes, given our self-confidence, history and collective
national identity, certainly we do not need anybody's recognition. But
Mr. Lapid really should have been asking himself a different question:
If things are really so clear, then why do Abbas and his clique still
insist on refusing to recognize, even in idle chatter, the fact that
Israel is the national state of the Jewish people?
In general, the
Palestinians casually answer this question by saying that any definition
of Israel as the "Jewish state" seemingly discriminates against its
non-Jewish citizens. But the dishonesty inherent in this claim is
obvious. No responsible figure in the Jewish community in Israel has
ever or will ever propose denying Arab, law-abiding citizens their civil
rights. And if a minority espousing such a position exists, indeed it
is incapable of providing the evidence by virtue of Israel's identity as
Jewish and democratic.
The real reason
that Palestinians deny the national Jewish identity of Israel stems from
Arab and Muslim unwillingness, in principle, to recognize the existence
of a Jewish nation (distinct from the religion). If the Jews do not
comprise a nation, then they are undeserving of their own nation state,
they conclude.
They argue that
while the Palestinians were forced, perhaps, into recognizing the fact
of the Jewish state's practical existence, the Jews have no right to a
state of their own, let alone in a region where the entire real estate
is entirely dominated by Arabs and Muslims. In other words, Arab Muslims
say they are ready to recognize the state of Israel, albeit
reluctantly, as a temporary refuge for the Jews that live here, but they
are not willing to recognize the permanence of this entity.
Also,
delegitimizing Israel or recognizing the Holocaust exclusively as an
argument for the establishment of the Jewish state while ignoring Jewish
history and the Zionist enterprise -- whether out of good intentions or
maliciously -- runs parallel with the Palestinian strategy of
characterizing the Jewish state as a temporary, Crusader state.
In his
accusations against opponents of the diplomatic process, Lapid has said
that their intransigence stems from a "mental state" and "because they
know nothing else." Certainly, whoever claims that Israel is largely to
blame for the elusive peace deal with the Arabs rather than Palestinian
intransigence, has apparently become sick with a certain "mental state,"
knowing nothing else. Too bad Lapid cannot recall his late father
Tommy's comments -- almost entirely contrary to his own -- at the
opening session of the Herzliya Conference at the Knesset, when he urged
people to understand that the Arab world is not oriented toward peace
with Israel.
Zalman Shoval
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5975
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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