Israel's right to exist?
Netanyahu is once again called on the Fatah leadership to agree to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, saying this was, and remains, the key to peace. And he goes on and on and on about it.
"For 62 years the Palestinians have been saying No to the Jewish state. I am once again calling upon our Palestinian neighbours say Yes to the Jewish state. Without recognition of the Israel as the state of the Jews we shall not be able to attain peace Such recognition is a step which requires courage and the Palestinian leadership should tell its people the truth that without this recognition there can be no peace There is no alternative to Palestinian leaders showing courage by recognising the Jewish state. This has been and remains the true key to peace."
As Haaretz noted in its report, Netanyahus demand for Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is for him a way on ensuring recognition of Israels right to exist as opposed to merely recognising Israel (my emphasis). This, as Haaretz added, is the recognition which Netanyahu and many other Israelis see as the real core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the name of pragmatism, willingness to merely to recognise Israel meaning to accept and live in peace with an Israel inside its pre-June 67 borders has long been the formal Palestinian and all-Arab position. Why does it stop short of recognising Israels right to exist, and why, really, does it matter so much to Zionism that Palestinians recognise this right?
The answer is in the following.
According to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.
◦In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.
◦Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.
◦The truth is that the General Assemblys partition proposal never went to the S