BICOM

Key Points

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s linkage of the creation of a Palestinian state to Palestinian recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people has been interpreted as a cynical delaying tactic, or as reflecting a racist undertone in the current Israeli government. This is to misunderstand the centrality that the right to a Jewish state has in Israeli and Jewish discourse.
•  The desire to build a democratic Jewish state in the land of Israel has been the ambition of the Zionist movement since its inception. This right gained international recognition culminating in Israel’s admission to the United Nations in 1949.
•  In explicitly stating the need for Israel to be recognised as a Jewish state, Netanyahu is making clear what most Israelis consider to be their obvious and inalienable right to self-determination.
•  Netanyahu’s demand is not that the Palestinians recognise Israel as an exclusively Jewish state, but that Israel’s Jewish character as it is today will be preserved by an agreement to create a Palestinian state.
•  No agreement can be reached in reality without some form of Palestinian acceptance that a two-state solution means preserving Israel’s character as the state of the Jewish people. That is the entire point of the agreement from an Israeli perspective

Introduction

In his policy address on 14 June 2009, Prime Minister Netanyahu called on the Palestinian leadership to ‘arise and say: “Enough of this conflict. We recognise the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own in this land, and we are prepared to live beside you in true peace.”‘ He went on to state that ‘if the Palestinians recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarised Palestinian state exists alongside the State of Israel.’[i] Netanyahu was responding to the speech given by US President Barack Obama in Cairo in which Obama called for honesty. In explicitly stating the need for Israel to be recognised as a Jewish state, Netanyahu was making clear what most Israelis consider to be their obvious and inalienable right. Significantly, Netanyahu did not make his demand a precondition for negotiations, but he made clear that it would be a condition for reaching an agreement. Nonetheless, his words have been interpreted as a cynical delaying tactic, or as reflecting a racist undertone in the current Israeli government. Such interpretations misunderstand the place that the right to a Jewish state has in Israeli and Jewish discourse. This briefing assesses Netanyahu’s formulation and it implications.

The Jewish state

The desire to return to the land of Israel and build a Jewish state has been the ambition of the Zionist movement since its inception. Zionists were driven by their desire to stop Jewish persecution in Europe and to create a renaissance for Jewish national, cultural and religious life. In his speech, Netanyahu made a point of emphasising that whilst the history of Jewish persecution through over 2,000 years of statelessness explains why the Jews need a state, the Jewish right to self-determination in the land of Israel is rooted in its uninterrupted 3,500-year-old connection to the land.

The Jewish right to a ‘national home’ in Palestine was endorsed by the British government in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It was given international legitimacy by the League of Nations in 1922. The right to a fully independent Jewish state was legitimised by the UN plan of 1947, which the Jews accepted, to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. When Israel declared its independence as a Jewish state in 1948, it did so in express accordance with the UN resolution. At the same time, it offered its Arab inhabitants ‘full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.’[ii] Israel was admitted to the UN in 1949.

After Israel was founded, the principle of equal rights for all its citizens was subsequently enshrined in Israeli law. Arabs and other minorities play a full and active role in the state, including as ministers in the government, justices of the Supreme Court, members of parliament, senior academics, ambassadors, members of the civil service and officers in the military.

In practice, in almost all aspects Israel is a secular state, where freedom of religion is respected. The main exception is that there is no civil marriage in Israel, but Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Bahai marriages are all recognised equally.  Most Jews in Israel, whilst retaining a strong attachment to Jewish culture and tradition, are not observant of Halakha (Jewish religious law). Nonetheless, the dominant culture and national identity of the state is Jewish, and Israel’s law of return gives the right of citizenship to all Jews without qualification. 75% of Israel’s population is Jewish, and for the vast majority of Jewish Israelis, the Jewish character of the state of Israel is non-negotiable.

When Netanyahu demands that the Palestinians ‘recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people,’ he is certainly not looking for the Palestinians to recognise Israel as an exclusively Jewish state, and he has not even explicitly demanded that they recognise Israel’s historical connection to the land. What he clearly does expect, and what Israelis will demand as part of a peace deal, is that Israel’s Jewish character as it is today will be recognised and preserved by an agreement to create a Palestinian state.

The struggle for recognition

Despite the well established legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, it has been a long struggle for Israel to win recognition from the Arab world. In his speech on 14 June, Netanyahu reasserted his belief, in common with most Israelis, that ‘the root of the conflict was, and remains, the refusal to recognise the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland.’ It is Netanyahu’s and most Israelis’ belief that it is this lack of acceptance, rather than Israel’s presence in the territories, that prevents peace from being made. The proof for Netanyahu is that when Israel offered to withdraw from territories under prime minister Ehud Barak in 2000 and later under prime minister Ehud Olmert, those offers were rejected. And when Israel did withdraw from territory, such as from Gaza, it did not bring peace.

In recent years, the Jewish right to a state, which for decades had universal acceptance – at least in liberal democratic states in the West – has been under attack. Whereas in the decades immediately following the Holocaust it was nearly impossible for anyone in Europe to deny the right of the Jewish people to a sovereign state of their own, as time has passed and as the conflict with the Palestinians has remained unresolved, such denials have become more common. Partly this has emerged from Palestinians, who, frustrated at the failure of the peace process, have resorted to calling for a ‘one-state solution’.[iii] Such an approach is bolstered by the belief that time is on their side, as Palestinians will eventually become a majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, undermining Israel’s legitimacy as a democratic Jewish state. This ‘one-state’ discourse has won supporters in the West, including among those who wish to delegitimise the State of Israel.

When the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 between Israel and the Palestinians, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PA chairman Arafat exchanged letters of mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. Israel recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and the PLO recognised ‘the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.’ The fact that Israel now explicitly insists on being recognised as a Jewish state when it did not before reflects the growth of insecurity in Israel, due to its legitimacy having been challenged. Since coming into office, Netanyahu has been under heavy international pressure to recognise the rights of the Palestinians to a state. By linking the creation of a Palestinian state to reciprocal recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, he is reasserting that the purpose of a two-state solution is to ensure both peoples have their rights to independence recognised equally. He seeks to rectify what he seems as an asymmetry that has emerged in the discourse, whereby Palestinian rights to sovereign self-determination are recognised, but not Jewish rights.

The Jewish state and the law of return

Perhaps the most important, practical implication of demanding that Israel be recognised as a Jewish state as part of a two-state solution is the acceptance that the solution for Palestinian refugees lies in the future Palestinian state, not in Israel. This is a difficult step for the Palestinians, as it means dropping their demand for Palestinian refugees to be able to return to Israel. But Israel does not consider itself primarily responsible for the refugee problem, and if such a demand were fulfilled, Israel could lose its Jewish majority, and cease to be viable as a secure Jewish democracy. It is absolutely clear that for Israel, such a right cannot be part of a final status deal. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas himself recognised in an interview he gave to Haaretz in September 2008 that the Palestinian right of return had to be limited, or otherwise Israel would be destroyed.[iv]

What does it mean for an agreement?

The Clinton proposals that came at the end of the final status talks under Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat in 2000 dealt with this area in the context of the refugee issue. Clinton recognised that ‘The Israeli side could not accept any reference to a right of return that would… threaten the Jewish character of the state.’ He also clarified the meaning of a two-state solution by saying, ‘A new State of Palestine is about to be created as the homeland of the Palestinian people, just as Israel was established as the homeland of the Jewish people. Under this two-state solution, our guiding principle has to be that the Palestinian state will be the focal point for the Palestinians who choose to return to the area, without ruling out that Israel will accept some of these refugees.’

The most widely referenced model for a full agreement, the unofficial Geneva Accords drafted in 2003, addresses the issue directly. In the agreement, both parties mark ‘the recognition of the right of the Jewish people to statehood and the recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to statehood.’

Recognition of narratives and a culture of peace

Another important point recognised in the Geneva Accords is the need for reconciliation programmes that would enable each side to better understand the narrative of the other. It is a source of disappointment for many Israelis that 30 years on from the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace accords, there is very little warmth in the bilateral relationship, and antisemitism is still rife in Egyptian culture and media. Whilst this is disappointing for Israelis, given that most Israelis and Egyptians live completely separate existences, this is of little practical consequence. By contrast, geographically, economically and politically, a Palestinian state would necessarily remain closely intertwined with Israel after an agreement. For Israelis and Palestinians to live together in a culture of peace and cooperation, it is important for each side – in its official discourse and through its education system – to recognise one another’s historical and cultural connections to the land they share. This is a challenge that both peoples would face if an agreement were reached, but it is already a commitment under phase one of the Roadmap that both sides cease incitement against one another. The need for the Palestinians to act on this has been stressed recently by President Obama.[v]

Conclusion

Whether or not the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is a formal part of a written agreement, no agreement can be reached in reality without Palestinian acceptance that a two-state solution means preserving Israel’s character as the state of the Jewish people. That is the entire point of the agreement from an Israeli perspective. This means, in practice, at least accepting that the Palestinian refugee problem will not be solved primarily in Israel. Most mainstream Israeli politicians, along with the majority of the public, now favour the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a peace deal. It will be impossible to build a culture of peace without the Palestinians reciprocating the step by acknowledging that such as deal will preserve the rights of the Jewish people to their sovereign self-determination.

Further Information

• For more background, see the FAQs section on the BICOM website, which explores the issues of Zionism, Jewish statehood and the Jewish connection to the land of Israel in more detail.

 

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[i] Full speech can be read at the Prime Minister’s website here.

[ii] Israel’s Declaration of Independence can be read in full here.

[iii] The One-State Solution; Sari Nusseibeh; Newsweek; 20 September 2008

[iv] ‘Abbas to Haaretz: We will compromise on refugees’ By Akiva Eldar and Avi Issacharoff; Haaretz; 14 September 2008

[v] Remarks by President Obama and President Abbas of the Palestinian authority; The White House; 28 May 2009