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Palestinians and the State of Israel

By The World ⋅ August 25, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment
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The Obama administration is launching a new round of Middle East peace talks next week in Washington, but expectations are low. One of the potential obstacles is the Israeli demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. The World’s Matthew Bell reports reports from Jerusalem. Download MP3

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. Two top US officials are in Israel to begin preliminary negotiations ahead of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington next week. It will be the first such meeting in 20 months. Expectations could hardly be lower. Some predict the talks will fall apart soon after they start. Two seemingly insurmountable issues stand in the way. We begin our coverage with The World’s Matthew Bell in Jerusalem.

MATTHEW BELL:  About a year ago, Israel’s right-wing prime minister caused quite a stir. Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech in which he reversed himself and said he supported the creation of a Palestinian state under certain conditions. Israel would have to have security guarantees, he said. And any new Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized. Then he said this.

SPEAKING HEBREW

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU:  And if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, we will be ready, in a genuine peace arrangement, to reach a solution of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.

BELL: To Palestinians, this demand, especially coming from this Israeli prime minister, is something new and, they say, unacceptable.

ABDUL JAWAD SALEH: He calls it Jewish. Go ahead, call it whatever you like. But why should I recognize you as such?

BELL: Abdul Jawad Saleh is a Palestinian lawmaker from Ramallah. He says Netanyahu is making this demand precisely because he knows Palestinians won’t accept it.

SALEH: He wants to show Obama and the others that he’s a peaceful man and he wants to make peace, but in fact he’s putting hurdles after hurdle just to undermine the peace process.

BELL: Why is this a hurdle?

SALEH: It’s not my duty to recognize as such. I mean, states recognize each other not by naming them, but by recognizing the state of Israel, the state of Egypt, regardless of their religion.

BELL: Palestinians say they have already formally agreed to recognize Israel as a country. And that should be good enough. Muhannad Abdul Hamid is with the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Culture.

SPEAKING ARABIC

MUHANNAD ABDUL HAMID:  I reject Iran as an Islamic state. I reject imposing religion on any political entity, whatever it is. I recognize Israel as a political entity, but not as a Jewish entity.

BELL: And besides, Hamid says, what really allows Jews to lay claim to the land anyway? Hamid says the connection between the Jewish people and the lands of the Bible is tenuous at best.

SPEAKING ARABIC

HAMID: I do not deny the presence of Jews in Palestine, but all archaeological excavations have not come out with one proof about the claims of the Jews to this land.

YOSSI ALPHER: They are saying, you Israelis came and stole our land. Can Israelis accept a final status agreement based on this narrative? I don’t think so.

BELL: Yossi Alpher is a former Israeli peace negotiator. While he vehemently disagrees with these sorts of Palestinian claims, he does say some Israelis also question the wisdom of their prime minister. Why make a demand up front that the Palestinians won’t accept anyway? But Alpher says this issue resonates with much of the public. And that’s because Israelis are skeptical about whether Palestinians really could just live and let live when it comes to their Jewish neighbors.

ALPHER: They like to make a lot today of their claim that it is Israel that is violating international legitimacy, but the initial and principle violation of international law and international legitimacy, was the refusal of the Arabs, led by the Palestinians, to accept the creation of Israel.

BELL: Alpher suggests that accepting Israel’s legitimacy, and not just grudgingly accepting it as a fact, would send a powerful signal to future Palestinian generations. There’s a lot wrapped up in this one issue. And Alpher says the best thing to do is to set it aside for later and get going on the more practical aspects of creating a Palestinian state. For The World, I’m Matthew Bell in Jerusalem.


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Discussion

6 comments for “Palestinians and the State of Israel”

  • Dorn

    Dear The World,

    It was instructive to hear Matthew Bell’s report today and that of Lina Sinjab (25 August).

    Matthew Bell interviewed several Palestinians who reject recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. One did concede that there were Jews in Palestine, but we were told that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state is a no no – even as Israel is expected to recognize a Palestinian state. Clearly Palestinians, and the broader Arab world, reject any notion of Jewish nationhood or Jewish ethnicity.

    We were also told that there is no archeological evidence linking Jews to the Holy Land! This falsehood is a veiled version of what Arafat told President Clinton: there was never a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and Jews have no connection to the city. (The fact that they were a majority in the old city from at least the 1840′s till the 1920′s riots is irrelevant to them).

    Then we went on to hear Lina Sinjab about Palestinian refugees in Syria. We were told that 100′s of 1000′s of Palestinian refugees lost their homes in the 1948 and 1967 wars – BUT NOT THAT THE ARAB WORLD STARTED THE 48 WAR and instigated 1967!

    We were given a dose of Syrian propaganda saying Palestinians are well integrated into Syrian society. In fact, they are largely excluded from Syrian citizenship, see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/no-way-home-the-tragedy-of-the-palestinian-diaspora-1806790.html :
    “While Palestinians are reasonably well integrated into the Syrian socio-economic structure, according to the scholar Laurie Brand they do not have the right to vote, nor can they stand for parliament or other political offices. Palestinians are barred from buying farmland and prohibited from owning more than one house. The female descendant of a Palestinian refugee can become a Syrian citizen by marrying a Syrian man. The male descendants of Palestinian men and their children are barred from acquiring Syrian citizenship, even if they marry Syrian women.”

    Of course the situation in Lebanon is worse.

    HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE THE WORLD TO
    (i) mention the similar number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands?
    (ii) contrast how Israel uplifted them with the way Arab lands kept, and still keep, descendants of Palestinian refugees, stateless?
    (iii) no other refugee situation in the world has been treated this way, e.g. Pakistan and India absorbed 11-13 million in a population exchange with a conflict that started at roughly the same time?
    (iv) the hypocrisy is especially jarring as the Arab world started the wars that led to BOTH refugee issues?

    I am always struck by the way The World does advocacy for governments like that of Syria and Turkey, while attacking Israel, and castigating China’s government ceaselessly (as today). Can you imagine a reporter ever doing a hatchet job on e.g. Syria like was done on China today? And China’s government has uplifted itself and its people, in a far more forward looking way than any government in the Arab world. The double standard in basic attitudes that govern the choice and tone of your stories is striking.

    • Buccaneer

      You’ve got to be kidding. Bell’s reporting the other day about how happy Israel is, and the stories showing how Palestinians are not wanting to come to Israel and their inflexibility on treaty terms is somehow *anti-Israel*? Don’t drink and post, it’ll be better for your logic. Crying “antisematism” every time Israel is mentioned weakens your argument- you won’t be satisfied until Israel gets nothing but press-releases praising how wonderful it is. Ignoring the government’s obvious flaws isn’t anti-semitic, it’s pointing out that (seperate from the religion which is irrelevant), their policies stink and need to be changed…”Jews” aren’t the problem- poor government is. Here’s the test; change the name in the news story to Pastastan, and the two groups into say, the tomato people and the cheese people ; now read the story with fresh eyes and tell me what it’s really pointing out.

      And in the meantime? Grow up.

  • Leslie Lomas

    Two questions re. the Aug. 25th stories related to Israel/Palestine: On the issue of Palestinian response to Netenyahu’s demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, I kept wondering what this would mean for the non-Jews living in Israel, and whether this is part of the concern of the Palestinian leadership. But this question was not addressed in the story, although it seems to me an important part of the issue. On the story regarding the right of return and the interviews with Palestinian refugees in Syria, I was wondering whether the Palestinians living and working in Syria are granted Syrian citizenship and the same legal rights as Syrians, and do they have Syrian passports for travel. The same questions apply to Palestinian refugees in other countries. It seems to me that these questions are a very important part of the issue of whether Palestinians would want to return to Palestine if they could. I wish these questions had been addressed in your coverage.

  • http://nolucky.ru/ Sashesol

    obama is no laugh

  • Buccaneer

    Tell me, does Matthew Bell’s resume include working for the Israeli tourest bureau? He only ever has the mildest criticism for Israel. Palestinians are rediculously far from blameless in the racial and religious violence and discrimination taking place in the Middle East, but Israel is equally guilty of South African apartied-style behavior. Bell’s reporting is pretty much silent on the matter. Why is that? The Happy State of Israel? Now this? Tell him he’s not there to be an apologist for either side, but to be a reporter; he seems to have forgotten this.

  • Michael Jasper

    Dorn(Dear The World),
    Would you please give your explanation, why “they” started the wars in ’48 and ’67. Was there a UN mandate that no territory would be exchanged after the ’67 war. Does Israel have unmonitored nuclear weapons??