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.”

The public reservations voiced by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas about the idea of absorbing Jewish settlers into a future Arab state of Palestine were met in Jerusalem with stringent Zionist criticism. This criticism appears to have softened Abbas’ unequivocal opposition to the absorption of a Jewish minority in his state. In response to a question from an Israeli reporter who accompanied representatives of the Meretz Party on an Aug. 22 visit to the Palestinian headquarters in Ramallah as to whether he would be willing for some of the settlements to remain in place under Palestinian sovereignty after an agreement is signed with Israel, Abbas said, “These are details that must be discussed” and promised,  “The issue will be placed on the negotiating table and we’ll address it with an open mind.”

Had I been in his shoes, I would have added, "If Israel insists we leave the settlements in our country, our parliament will translate into Arabic all of your laws designed to safeguard Israel’s Jewish majority and Jewish identity. In addition, I promise the settlers similar treatment to that which you Israelis grant the non-Jewish minority living under your sovereignty."