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Why Palestinians Must Recognize Israel as a Jewish State

(National Interest) Chuck Freilich - The Jews are unique in that they are both a religious group and a people, a nation, with a right of self-determination. The Jews' right to a nation-state was recognized by the League of Nations and United Nations. Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people and it is high time that the Palestinians reconcile themselves to this. Israel does not need Palestinian recognition to define itself. What it does need is for the Palestinians to irrevocably recognize the legitimacy of its Jewish character. Only when the Palestinians can bring themselves to do so will Israel be confident that they are truly ready for peace and an end to the conflict. Israel, the Palestinians note, did not ask Egypt and Jordan to recognize its Jewish character. This is true, the difference being that, unlike the Palestinians, they did not claim all of Israel as their own. Most Israelis believe that the negotiations with the Palestinians are not really over the West Bank, but over the Palestinians' ongoing refusal to accept the legitimacy of Israel's right to exist even within the 1948 borders. The writer is a senior fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School.
2014-04-08 00:00:00
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