THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 70, May 11, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ACCEPTING ISRAEL AS THE JEWISH STATE
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE KEY ISSUE OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE ISRAELI JEWS & THE PALESTINIAN ARABS: SHOULD THERE BE A
JEWISH STATE IN THE MIDDLE EAST? SHOULD ISRAEL BE ACCEPTED AS A SOVEREIGN JEWISH STATE? THE
FAILURE OF ISRAELI-ARAB DIPLOMACY TO DEAL WITH THE CENTRAL ISSUE OF THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT -- TO
WHAT MUST PEACEMAKERS DIRECT THEIR ATTENTION IN ENDEAVORING TO RESOLVE THE ISRAELI-ARAB CONFLICT?
FULL STORY:
When a major Arab state would finally sign a peace treaty with Israel, it was long assumed, the Arab-Israeli conflict would
end. The Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979, however, buried that expectation; it had the perverse effect of making other
states and also the Egyptian populace more anti-Zionist.
The 1980s gave birth to a hope that, instead, Palestinian recognition of Israel would close the conflict. The total failure of
the 1993 Declaration of Principles (also known as the Oslo Accords) then buried that expectation.
What now? Starting about 2007, a new focus has emerged, of winning acceptance of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state.
Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set the terms:
"I do not intend to compromise in any way over the issue
of the Jewish state. This will be a condition for our
recognition of a Palestinian state."
Olmert was Israel's worst Prime Minister, but he got this one right. Arab-Israeli diplomacy has dealt with a myriad of
subsidiary issues while tiptoeing around the conflict's central issue: "Should there be a Jewish state?" Disagreement over
this answer – rather than over Israel's boundaries, its exercise of self defense, its control of the Temple Mount, its water
consumption, its housing construction in West Bank towns, diplomatic relations with Egypt, or the existence of a
Palestinian state – is the key issue.
Palestinian leaders responded, with howls of outrage, declaring that they "absolutely refused" to accept Israel as a Jewish
state. They even pretended to be shocked at the notion of a state defined by religion, although their own "Constitution of
the State of Palestine," third draft, states that "Arabic and Islam are the official Palestinian language and religion." Olmert's
efforts went nowhere.
On taking over the Prime Ministry in early 2009, Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated Olmert's point in his diplomacy.
Regrettably, the Obama administration endorsed the Palestinian position, again sidelining the Israeli demand. (Instead, it
focuses on housing for Jews in Jerusalem. Talk about the heart of the issue.)
If Palestinian politicians reject Israel's Jewish nature, what about the Palestinian and the broader Arab and Muslim
publics? Polls and other evidence suggest a longterm average of 20 percent acceptance of Israel, whether in the
Mandatory period or now, whether Muslims in Canada or Palestinians in Lebanon.
To learn more about current Arab opinion, the Middle East Forum commissioned Pechter Middle East Polls to ask a simple
question of a thousand adults in each of four countries: "Islam defines [your state]; under the right circumstances, would
you accept a Jewish State of Israel?" (In Lebanon, the question differed slightly: "Islam defines most states in the Middle
East; under the right circumstances, would you accept a Jewish state of Israel?")
The results: 26 percent of Egyptians and 9 percent of urban Saudi subjects answered (in November, 2009) in the
affirmative, as did 9 percent of Jordanians and 5 percent of Lebanese (in April, 2010).
The polls reveal broad consensus across such differences as occupation, socio-economic standing, and age. For no
discernable reason, more Egyptian women and Saudi and Jordanian men accept a Jewish Israel than their gender
counterparts, whereas, among the Lebanese, both sexes rank similarly. Some significant variations exist, however: as one
would expect in Lebanon, 16 percent of (largely Christian) North Lebanon accepts a Jewish Israel in contrast to just 1
percent in the (mostly Shi'ite) Bekaa Valley.
More significantly, weighting these responses by the size of their populations (respectively, 79, 29, 6, and 4 million)
translates into an overall average of 20 percent acceptance of Israel's Jewishness – neatly confirming the existing
percentage.
Although 20 percent constitutes a small minority, its consistency over time and place offers encouragement. That
one-fifth of Muslims, Arabs, and even Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state suggests that, despite a near-century
of indoctrination and intimidation, a base for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict does exist.
Would-be peacemakers must direct their attention to increasing the size of this moderate cohort. Getting from 20 percent
to, say, 60 percent would fundamentally shift the politics of the Middle East, displacing Israel from its exaggerated role
and releasing the peoples of this blighted region to address their real challenges. Not Zionism, but such, oh, minor
problems as autocracy, brutality, cruelty, conspiracism, religious intolerance, apocalypticism, political extremism,
misogyny, slavery, economic backwardness, brain drain, capital flight, corruption, and drought.
© Daniel Pipes 2010
Originally Published in National Review Online, May 11, 2010
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, May 11, 2010
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/8363/accepting-israel-as-jewish-state
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for National Review Online, Front Page
Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and
developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington
Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network
television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the
U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately
twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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