“I will accept a Jewish state”: Six words which would change history..... In his speech to the US Congress on 24 May 2011 (see Beyond Images Briefing 286, dated 30 May 2011), Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said: “..... President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you that it wasn’t easy for me, and I said: ‘I will accept a Palestinian state’. It is time for Mr Abbas to stand before his people and say: ‘I will accept a Jewish state’. These six words will change history. They will make clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end. That they are not building a state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it. This will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace. With such a partner, the people of Israel will be prepared to make a far-reaching compromise. I will be prepared to make a far-reaching compromise.... If Mr Abbas can make peace with the Jewish state, I promise that Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations. It will be the first to do so.....” Einat Wilf is a member of the Israeli Parliament, representing the recently-formed Independence Party, a breakaway from the Israeli Labour party. Wilf is a strong advocate of a two-state solution, and is considered doveish in Israeli political terms. She is also a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. Her article appeared in the Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com) on 17 May 2011, and was written in response to a major speech by US President Obama in which he appeared to question the need for the Palestinians to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. Wilf writes: For the Palestinians’ sake But the Prime Minister’s demand is neither of those things. It 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. Those who have dreamt, founded and built it have done so with one purpose in mind: to create a homeland for the Jewish people. It is Israel’s raison d’etre. Rather, it is the Palestinians – for their own sake and dignity – who need to recognise this. Israel is not a colonial project, as the Palestinians tell themselves..... Zionism has been a political movement of self-determination for the Jewish people. The Palestinian national movement was about resisting Zionism and its programme to build a state. In the process of resisting, and given the continued failure of resistance, 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. In doing so, the Palestinians might have been telling themselves a comforting story of hope, but one that they had better discard if they are ever to have a state of their own. Hope is generally considered to be a positive word, but if it prevents engagement with reality while living in suspended anticipation of some make-believe future that will never materialise, that it is neither positive nor helpful. Those who feed this hope do the cause of peace and Palestinian statehood no favour. Zionism, unlike colonial movements, was a movement of people who were coming home. As such, it was not about exploiting the (non-existent) resources of a foreign land, but about exploiting the only resources the Jewish people ever had – their brains and ingenuity – in order to build one, literally from the ground up. The Palestinians need to signal to themselves that they recognise the Jewish state Building a country requires the mobilisation of a people. As long as the Palestinians continue to divert their own country-building resources into resisting Israel, and hoping for its disappearance (and yes, hoping that Israel will become a country with a Jewish minority among Arabs is hoping for its disappearance), there will be no peace, and they will have no state. And yet, should the Palestinians finally recognise that in creating the state of Israel, the Jewish people have come home, the Palestinians will signal to the world, and to Israel, and above all to themselves, that they have chosen to leave behind the siren call of resistance and are ready to get down to the remarkable, difficult and immensely rewarding task of building a state that they can call their own. [Many would argue that the Palestinians are already state-building, certainly in the West Bank. However, the institutions they have built and their practical accomplishments are mainly in the economic and administrative spheres. In ideological terms, Palestinian society is still dominated by the denial of Israel’s legitimacy. This is the weakness which Wilf highlights – Beyond Images]. Some related Beyond Images Briefings Briefing 286 – 30 May 2011 Briefing 276 – 21 January 2011 Briefing 275 – 20 January 2011 Briefing 272 – 11 December 2010 Briefing 266 – 29 July 2010 Briefing 249 – 10 December 2009 Briefing 227 – 25 December 2008 Briefing 226 – 8 December 2008 Briefing 39 – January 2003
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