Yonatan Touval: A Recognition Israel Doesn’t Need
[Yonatan Touval is a senior policy analyst with the Geneva Initiative, an Israeli nonprofit organization which seeks to advance a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.]
Here is a statement you will not hear today from Jerusalem: “I wish to declare that the government of Israel will not ask any nation, be it near or far, mighty or small, to recognize our right to exist.”
But it is a statement that was made in June 1977 by then-prime minister Menachem Begin. A sentimental nationalist of the highest order, Begin was nevertheless able to identify the only kind of recognition that Israel should require: “I re-emphasize that we do not expect anyone to request, on our behalf, that our right to exist in the land of our fathers, be recognized. It is a different recognition which is required between us and our neighbors: recognition of sovereignty and of the mutual need for a life of peace and understanding.”
A generation later, successive Israeli leaders have ignored Begin’s instruction and demanded, first, that the Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist (which the P.L.O. did, in 1993) and, more recently, that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Yet, while the demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist was unique (after all, it is non-states that customarily seek such recognition from already existing states), the more recent demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is dangerous. It must be resisted by those who care about Israel’s long-term strategic interests.
Israel’s leaders had never sought such recognition from any party, friend or foe. The 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, which Begin signed, only expresses mutual recognition of the “sovereignty,” “integrity” and “political independence” of both parties. The peace treaty with Jordan that Yitzhak Rabin concluded in 1994 uses the same language. No mention of Israel’s Jewishness appears in either treaty.
In fact, it was only on the eve of the Annapolis conference in November 2007 that then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert first trotted out the Jewish card, conditioning his participation on Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Fortunately, the international community did not respond and Olmert abandoned his demand.
Now that the demand has been revived by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it is important to understand what is at stake....
Read entire article at International Herald Tribune
Here is a statement you will not hear today from Jerusalem: “I wish to declare that the government of Israel will not ask any nation, be it near or far, mighty or small, to recognize our right to exist.”
But it is a statement that was made in June 1977 by then-prime minister Menachem Begin. A sentimental nationalist of the highest order, Begin was nevertheless able to identify the only kind of recognition that Israel should require: “I re-emphasize that we do not expect anyone to request, on our behalf, that our right to exist in the land of our fathers, be recognized. It is a different recognition which is required between us and our neighbors: recognition of sovereignty and of the mutual need for a life of peace and understanding.”
A generation later, successive Israeli leaders have ignored Begin’s instruction and demanded, first, that the Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist (which the P.L.O. did, in 1993) and, more recently, that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Yet, while the demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist was unique (after all, it is non-states that customarily seek such recognition from already existing states), the more recent demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is dangerous. It must be resisted by those who care about Israel’s long-term strategic interests.
Israel’s leaders had never sought such recognition from any party, friend or foe. The 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, which Begin signed, only expresses mutual recognition of the “sovereignty,” “integrity” and “political independence” of both parties. The peace treaty with Jordan that Yitzhak Rabin concluded in 1994 uses the same language. No mention of Israel’s Jewishness appears in either treaty.
In fact, it was only on the eve of the Annapolis conference in November 2007 that then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert first trotted out the Jewish card, conditioning his participation on Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Fortunately, the international community did not respond and Olmert abandoned his demand.
Now that the demand has been revived by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it is important to understand what is at stake....