(Council on Foreign Relations) Elliott Abrams - The effort to eliminate the Jewish State continues even as Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary, in the belief that one Jewish State, one Jewish homeland, is one too many and cannot be tolerated. This view is receiving new energy nowadays from academics and intellectuals in a new article in Foreign Affairs entitled "Israel's One-State Reality," authored by professors Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami. Their argument is that there is already a one-state reality and that Israel treats non-Jews very badly, that to defend Israel is "defending colonialist principles." The U.S. should acknowledge all this, denounce it, and begin punishing Israel with "sanctions on Israel and Israeli leaders." The authors refer to Arab citizens of Israel as "Palestinians," which is the way only a very small minority of Israeli Arabs characterize themselves. A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 77% of Arab Israelis "feel part of the state." In that poll the great majority of Israeli Arabs believe they have a common destiny with other Israelis. "The proportion of non-Jewish people who define themselves primarily as 'Palestinian' now stands at around 7%." The authors urge that "Although Washington cannot prevent normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the United States should not lead such efforts." The clear suggestion here is that if it were possible to "prevent normalization," that would be fine. The article calls for the end of the State of Israel as it has existed since 1948. By publishing this article, Foreign Affairs has served only to show us the state of the debate in academia. The goal of many of today's academic critics is not to reform the State of Israel but to eliminate it. The writer, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the CFR, served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House.
2023-05-11 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive