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The Meaning of Israel as the State of the Jewish People
(Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman - Decades before the founding of the state in 1948, the international community recognized the Land of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish nation. The core of the conflict remains the Palestinian refusal to accept the existence of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. The international community should encourage recognition by the Palestinians of the Jewish state, in order to ensure the realization of the vision of two states for two peoples. Since their emergence in antiquity, the Jewish people have constituted a nation, a people, and a civilization, anchored in basic aspects of their identity, such as Judaism and the Hebrew language. Israel is to the Jewish people what France is to the French people, Ireland is to the Irish and Japan is to the Japanese. Just as Egypt defines itself as the Arab Republic of Egypt, so too, Israel defines itself as the Jewish state. Archaeological findings and historical records demonstrate that Jews have lived continuously in the Land of Israel for the past 3500 years. The right of the Jews to self-determination was acknowledged by the international community already in the 18th and 19th centuries. World leaders such as Napoleon, as expressed in his letter to the Jewish people as "The Rightful Heirs of Palestine," and numerous American presidents, including John Adams and Abraham Lincoln, exemplified this recognition of the ties between the Jewish people and their homeland.