[Jewish Chronicle-UK] Alon Pinkas - The Arab world has de-facto recognized Israel's existence, but not its right to exist. The Arabs recognize Israel as a strategic fact of life, a military power that currently is invincible. But Israel, according to this paradigm, is not a permanent feature in the Middle East. Give or take 200 years and they will be driven out. So goes the Arab argument. This is consistent with Netanyahu's basic argument that the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the Arab world's basic reluctance to recognize Israel, rather than a tractable territorial dispute or merely a clash of two national liberation movements. If that was the case, then partition should have been accepted by the Arabs on the numerous occasions it was offered. So Arab recognition of Israel as the state of the Jews is a monumental educational process that is a prerequisite to lasting peace. Once Israel is "The state of the Jews" in Arab eyes, it has a right to exist. Once it has a right to exist, durable coexistence is attainable. The writer is the former Israeli consul-general in the U.S.
2009-06-22 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive