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The Real Obstacle to Palestinian Statehood
(Globe and Mail-Canada) Yossi Klein Halevi - The Arab world's insistence on defining the Jews out of their own national identity isn't only insulting: It prolongs the conflict by encouraging rejection of Israel's legitimacy. If the Jews have contrived their national identity, what, then, is the meaning of their history and attachment to their homeland? The Palestinian solution is to turn Jewish history, too, into a lie. Palestinian media routinely dismiss the Jewish narrative: There was no ancient Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, there was no temple on the Temple Mount, and the Holocaust has been exaggerated or entirely invented. The denial of Jewish history and identity - widespread in the Arab world - is ultimately the greatest threat to peace. The writer is a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.