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The Prerequisite for Peace in the Middle East: Arab Recognition of the Legitimacy of Israel

(BESA Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Kenneth J. Bialkin - In all previous peace initiatives, the magic formula was for Israel to make concessions so that a sovereign Palestinian state could be established. Israel was pressed to yield land and forego settlements in areas considered its homeland, which were acquired in wars following Arab aggression. A peace process which rests upon Israel's unilateral concessions is doomed to fail - unless and until the world also demands that the Arab states (including the Palestinians) recognize Israel's legitimacy and sovereignty, explicitly and openly. The Arab world must come to recognize that the Jewish claim for a state and for land and recognition did not begin in the twentieth century and is not simply compensation for the suffering of the Holocaust. The Jewish claim for recognition has abided for more than 3,000 years. The failure to convince the Arab world to internalize the right of the Jews to share the Land of Israel and to put an end to the conflict means the conflict and the state of war will continue. The writer is a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
2010-03-12 09:30:57
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