Skip to main content

Is There a Place for Jews In Future Palestinian State?

Anyone who expects Palestinians to welcome Jewish settlements with open arms in their future state should first examine Israel’s attitude toward the Palestinian minority in its own.
Netanel, an Israeli Jewish settler, works the land outside his home in the unauthorised Jewish settler outpost of Havat Gilad, south of the West Bank city of Nablus July 29, 2013. Israeli and Palestinian officials put forward clashing formats for peace talks due to resume in Washington on Monday for the first time in nearly three years after intense U.S. mediation. It is unclear how the United States hopes to bridge the core issues in the dispute, including borders, the future of Jewish settlements on the W
Read in 

The right has recently started using the claim of “Judenrein” (German for “an area cleared of Jews”) to spearhead its propaganda against the two-state solution. How is it possible, they ask, tauntingly, that Israel has a 20% Palestinian minority, and yet the Palestinians are demanding to rid the West Bank of all its Jewish residents, down to the very last one?

Responding to the September 2011 statement by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States, Maen Areikat, that Palestine should be devoid of Jews, Elliott Abrams, who was an adviser to former president George Bush, told USA Today, "Such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany." He even defined as “an abhorrent form of anti-Semitism” the position of the Palestinian envoy, who told reporters,  “After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated.”

Access the Middle East news and analysis you can trust

Join our community of Middle East readers to experience all of Al-Monitor, including 24/7 news, analyses, memos, reports and newsletters.

Subscribe

Only $100 per year.