Mahmoud Abbas doesn’t need my advice, but I’m going to offer it anyway.
The next time Benjamin Netanyahu or anyone else makes "recognizing Israel as a Jewish state" a prerequisite to negotiations or anything else: Make fun of him.
It’s not that I don’t understand where Netanyahu is coming from. But it’s meaningless. We had this party 10 years ago, with the PLO and its accursed charter and its alleged renunciation at its absurd re-convention and what do we have 10 years later?
Thousands dead after the Second Intifada, Hamas running the Gaza Strip off a Protocols of the Elders of Zion playbook, and mutual mistrust so thick it stands up on its own.
"Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state" is not going to cut it. It’s not that I believe that all it comes down to is ending violence as a precondtion for Palestinian statehood — although, that would probably help more than anything else.
It’s just that a one-off recognition of Israel’s Jewish status is just that — a one-off. If you want a change in tone it has to be consistent: I would gladly forget about such a recognition were P.A. officials to consistently — on each and every occasion — condemn the murder of Israeli civilians as a crime against humanity and not as merely "harming the Palestinian cause."
I would forget about it were Palestinian school texts to address in a straightforward way Haj Amin al-Husseini’s slick and cynical Jew hatred — in the same way my sons’ Virginia Department of Education textbooks refer to the founders’ slaveholding.
And because "recognizing Israel as a Jewish state" is essentially meaningless, the insistence by Netanyahu and others on its expression has evolved from a genuine desire to see a change in the Palestinian polity to a bullying tactic. Like getting the Palestinians to cry "uncle." Like that absurd session with the Palestine National Council 10 years ago. Like that horrific session of the Lebanese parliament convening under the barrels of Israeli rifles in 1982.
And it becomes a pretext for Israel not to fulfill its own obligations.
So does Abbas call Netanyahu on the bullying? No, he walks right into it with a "I won’t do it, I won’t do it, I won’t do it, so there, so there, I cannot hear a word you say, da-de-da-de-lalalala."
And he doesn’t even mention the consistent measures toward advancing a peaceful polity his government has introduced — like cutting off salaries to inciteful Imams — that are so much more substantive than "recognizing Israel as a Jewish state." (And yes, it’s not enough, but it’s a start.)
And nothing confounds a bully like humor.
So here’s my recommendation for the Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad show, coming soon to a West Bank hilltop near you:
Fayyad: Ya Mahmoud, what’s that over there?
Abbas: Where, Salam?
Fayyad: There, where the hills start getting littler … and then they flatten … all the way to the sea.
Abbas: Why… I believe it’s a state!
Fayyad: Really! I hadn’t recognized it.
Abbas: For sure!
Fayyad: I see it now! But what kind of state is it?
Abbas: It looks … Jewish!
Fayyad: No! Jewish, really?
Abbas: Yes, absolutely! Unmistakably. I would even say very Jewish.
Fayyad: So you recognize it as a Jewish state?
Abbas: I recognize it as a very Jewish state.
Fayyad: How interesting! What kind of Jewish? Woody Allen Jewish?
Abbas: No. No, not at all. Much more robust. There are earth movers everywhere. I don’t think the earth has moved for Woody in decades.
Fayyad: Not since Annie Hall, for sure. So — Adam Sandler Jewish?
Abbas: Closer, but not so unrefined. If you cock your ear just so you will hear the strains of a world class philharmonic orchestra.
Fayyad: Wait! I’ve got it! Natalie Portman Jewish!
Abbas: That’s it! Cute, little and vibrant!
Fayyad: Wallah — let’s call Bibi! He’ll be so chuffed.
Abbas: No, no — I wouldn’t want to disturb him.
Fayyad: Disturb him?
Abbas: From what I understand, he’s preoccupied with the potential for malnutrition among the children of Gaza.
Fayyad: Of course — what would he want to know from the state of Natalie Portman?
