Dhimmi Roots of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Six little words. That’s all it will take to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. So said Benjamin Netanyahu last week, on the eve of yet another Quartet meeting to kickstart the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process.
Those words are: “I will accept the Jewish state.”
We’ve been hearing these six little words lately – but never from the lips of a Palestinian leader. In early June Nabil Sha’ath told an Arabic newspaper that the Palestinians will never recognise a Jewish state – only a state of Jews, Muslims and Christians in Israel.
Until Netanyahu decided to make a stand on Israel ‘s acceptance ‘as a Jewish state’, Israeli negotiators assumed that if Arabs accepted the ‘two-state solution’ they automatically accept Israel as a Jewish state. They do not. Having obtained UN approval in September to achieve their independent state of Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians will move on to their next target : achieving their ‘right of return’ to Israel proper - a surefire euphemism for turning Israel into an Arab-majority state.
The refusal to utter those six little words points to the Arab rejectionism at the heart of the conflict. As Netanyahu states, ‘The issue is not over what Israel calls itself, but rather over what it is’.