m4786c.jpg

Netanyahu’s Useless Demand

Benjamin Netanyahu has now joined Israelis on the left and right who embrace a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But, while Netanyahu is right to demand that a Palestinian state be demilitarized, and that Palestinian refugees be denied the right of return to Israel proper, his insistence that Palestinians recognize Israel's Jewish identity is a useless obstacle to peace.

HAIFA – Ever since the Six Day War of June 1967, a small number of Israelis, not all on the left, supported the idea of two states as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most of their compatriots rejected it, as did the Palestinians. Israelis justified their stance with this question: Just when did the Palestinians become a nation deserving of statehood? The Palestinians were asking in return: Why should the Jews, a religious community dispersed around the world, have their own state?

https://prosyn.org/oSvPPZw