(Jerusalem Post) Einat Wilf - Prime Minister Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people is the one core demand that, once met, will mean that peace is truly possible. Indeed, Israel does not need Palestinian recognition of its identity as the Jewish state. Rather, it is the Palestinians - for their own sake and dignity - who need to recognize this. The Palestinians have told themselves a story according to which Zionism is a colonial movement that has brought strangers to their land, strangers who - faced with determined resistance - are destined, sooner or later, to leave it. But Zionism, unlike colonial movements, was a movement of people who were coming home. As long as the Palestinians continue to divert their own country-building resources into resisting Israel and hoping for its disappearance, there will be no peace, and they will have no state. The writer, a member of Knesset for the Independence Party, sits on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
2011-05-20 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive