With Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on recognition of Israel’s status as a Jewish state, Israel has inserted a new condition into peace negotiations, writes Howard Schneider of The Washington Post:
JERUSALEM — The documents accepted by Israeli leaders during breakthrough peace talks with the Palestinians in Oslo in 1993 said nothing about their country’s status as a Jewish state or homeland — a concept absent as well from other accords negotiated by the two sides as recently as 2007.
"It has never been an Israeli demand," said Ron Pundak, a member of Israel’s negotiating team in Norway and now director of the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv. "When we negotiated Oslo, the issue of the characteristics of our state was never an issue. I think it is a mistake that we demand of others how we define ourselves."
Sixteen years later, with the Oslo accords tattered by years of conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has decided that a final peace will require more: Palestinian recognition of Israel, not just as a diplomatic or political entity, but as the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people. Palestinians view the demand as unnecessary, a bid to derail their quest for a state of their own. But Netanyahu’s advisers say it is an effort to push the peace process beyond diplomacy and toward reconciliation.
"If there is no recognition that the Jewish people exist, that the Jewish people emerged from this land, then you have no end of conflict," said Michael B. Oren, Netanyahu’s incoming ambassador to Washington. "During Oslo, the thinking was: We don’t need recognition. We are strong. We are the winners. Give them a chance. Give them an opportunity to acclimate to peace. This was wrong."
Full story here.
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