Anyone who honestly seeks evidence that the Palestinian leadership is serious about its pursuit of a peace settlement with Israel is bound to find more than enough of that. In fact, there is so much evidence that it may cast the Palestinian position as one of weakness and desperate eagerness. That would be a misreading of a responsible and principled position based on what the Palestinian leadership thinks is in the best interest of the peoples of the region, the Palestinian people foremost.
Further testing and continuously raising the bar, by insisting on unreasonable demands to check Palestinian intentions, is counterproductive and threatens what could be the last opportunity to achieve peace based on a two-state solution. Putting demands on the Palestinians that are tantamount to asking them to accept Zionist credos cannot be taken seriously. A case in point is the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Despite the fact that the Palestine Liberation Organization has recognized the state of Israel for more than 20 years — with no reciprocal recognition by Israel of the state of Palestine — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now added the issue of recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” as a precondition for any agreement. He is the first Israeli prime minister to make such a demand, and it has largely been recognized for what it is — an attempt to undermine the negotiations and ensure that no agreement is reached.
Not knowing what is happening in the current negotiations, I will venture to explain why such a condition should have no place on the negotiating table. Simply stated, this demand is discriminatory in that it concedes to all Jews, exclusively, an innate right to be in Palestine, whereupon Palestinians who live in Palestine do so only by permission of “the Jewish state” and not as an innate right. In fact, by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, Palestinians would be stating that their presence in Palestine has been illegitimate all along. Of course, this is out of the question, and Palestinians cannot accept it.
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