Abbas refuses to recognize Israel as Jewish state
RAMALLAH, West Bank —
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on Monday rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
“A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean?” Abbas asked in a speech in the West Bank’s political capital of Ramallah. “You can call yourselves as you like, but I don’t accept it and I say so publicly.”
Abbas said the topic was “extensively discussed” and rejected by the Palestinians during a November 2007 international conference in Annapolis, near Washington, at which the two sides relaunched peace negotiations.
Netanyahu has demanded the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of an eventual peace deal.
Such a move would amount to an effective renunciation of the right of return of refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel was created, a cherished principle of the Palestinians.
The Israeli foreign ministry reacted to Abbas’s statement by saying “recognition of Israel as the sovereign state of the Jewish people is an essential and necessary step in the historic process of reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians.”
“The more the Palestinians assimilate this fundamental and substantive fact, the sooner the peace between the two nations will progress toward fruition,” the ministry said.
Abbas also criticized Israel’s firebrand Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said the new cabinet was not bound by the previous government’s decision taken at Annapolis to relaunch peace talks with the Palestinians.
“Lieberman is in a class by himself. He has yet to learn the art of politics and he has not yet practiced politics enough. He is an adversary, he has come to say ‘no’ and ‘I reject’ and every chance he gets he comes up with a new refrain,” he said.
On the latest round of Palestinian reconciliation talks which opened on Monday in Cairo, Abbas said if the parties managed to form a unity government, that cabinet would have to abide by past Israeli-Palestinian accords.
“It is the government and its members that should respect such deals and not movements,” Abbas said.
He was referring to the Hamas movement ruling Gaza whose refusal to recognize past deals, to renounce violence and to recognize Israel has prompted the West to blacklist the Islamist group as a terror outfit.
Should the Palestinians form a unity government, the cabinet’s top priority would be reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military carried out a devastating 22-day offensive in December-January.
Another priority will be preparing for combined presidential and parliamentary elections “before Jan 24, 2010,” the date when the mandate of the current legislature dominated by Hamas expires, Abbas said.
His secular Fatah party and the Hamas movement have been at odds since June 2007 when the Islamists booted their rivals from the Gaza Strip after a week of deadly fighting.
Wire reports
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12 Comments
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skipthesong
Netanyahu has demanded the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state as part of an eventual peace deal." Ok, now you've pissed me off. What the hell kind of demand is that? Mr. Netanyahu, I'd like to hear the majority of Israelis make that statement.
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Midnightpromise
I agree, they should call it Eastern Florida or something a little more appropriate at least.
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skipthesong
I agree, they should call it Eastern Florida or something a little more appropriate at least."
I'll even go with that.
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Helter_Skelter
I wonder if Abbas has ever questioned Saudi Arabia being an Islamic state?
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SezWho2
Why should he and what would it matter if he had? I'm not sure that Saudi Arabia is an Islamic state. Iran is a much more likely candidate for that term.
However, Abbas is not concerned with the idea of the existence of a Jewish state somewhere. He is concerned with the idea of the existence of Jewish state in Israel.
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Helter_Skelter
Why is that? The ancestral homeland of the Jews is Israel. Just like the ancestral homeland of the Muslims is Saudi Arabia. No one objects to that.
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SezWho2
I think the article is fairly clear about why that is. Israel cannot remain a Jewish state and a democratic state if it acquiesces to the right of return. To proclaim that it is a Jewish state closes the door to that right.
That Israel is the ancestral home of the Jews is not relevant. That is ancient history. The expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland is contemporary.
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Helter_Skelter
Sure it is. The Jews have had a presence in Israel for millennia. They were there when it was still a sparsely populated desert that the Arabs couldn't have cared less about.
There was no expulsion of the "Palestinians" from their homeland. The "Palestinians" were instructed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to leave Israel because of the impending war to annihilate the Jewish state. Of course, they failed to achieve their goal though they still continue their quest.
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teleprompter
And what makes this newsworthy?
To recognize Israel would be tantamount to Abbas signing his own death warrant and handing it, unarmed, to assassins and executioners from Hamas, Hizzbollah, Al Qaeda, The Taliban, the Moslem Brotherhood,Iran and any number of groups and movements who "violently misunderstand" Islam.
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SezWho2
Helter_Skelter,
Nope. Not relevant. Pretty much the same for the Iroqouis in upstate New York.
There's no question that Jews have had a presence in Israel for millenia. It's not true, however, that the Arabs did not care about the land. Even so, that is really not the point.
Jews were a minority population on the land that is not Israel, promised the right of return to those they expelled and have now reneged on that promise, realizing no doubt that the fulfillment of it is inconsistent with a permanent Jewish state.
That is what Abbas is exercised about.
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Helter_Skelter
If that's your argument, and since Israel was declared a state over half a century ago, I guess it's the "Palestinians" who now need to recognize that the land is no longer theirs. Just like the Iroqouis in upstate New York
C'mon, you know the Muslim Arabs don't want the Infidel Jew living in the Middle East. They terrorized the Jews long before Israel even existed, and continue today. They forfeited any right of return long ago. Anyway, we all know that the right of return is code used by Muslims and Socialists for the destruction of Israel.
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SezWho2
Helter_Skelter,
Again you miss the point. There were neither millenial Jews nor millenial Iroquois still alive to press the claim to the land. Deed-holding Palestinians still remain, although if the Israelis can stall long enough, they too will pass away.
I think it's safe to say that Jews and Arabs have terrorized each other. And they continue doing so today. The right of return has not been forfeited. It is just not being enforced by those with the power to do so.
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