Israel, The Jewish State

"We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel."
"Return to negotiations is possible if Israel agrees to a full freeze of settlement [construction], including Jerusalem, release of the fourth group of long-term prisoners, and setting a timetable for negotiations which will begin with setting borders."

"It’s impossible for us to wait any longer, because Israel continues its aggression and expropriation of lands and setting facts on the ground by continuing to build settlements."
"The government of Israel doesn’t want, for internal reasons, to define its borders and we can’t continue with this situation."

"The situations in the [West] Bank is dangerous, and can’t continue. All signs point to [the fact that] the American mediation [of peace talks] failed with the end of negotiations."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas gives a press conference following his meeting with South African president, on November 26, 2014, in Pretoria, as part of his first official visit to South Africa. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO/STEFAN HEUNIS)

How talks could even get off the ground when the Palestinians refuse at the starting gate to recognize Israel as a Jewish State is a puzzle only the Byzantine mind of Arabs can understand, although even they would be hard put to make a logical case to defend that refusal. All the States of the Middle East save Iran and Israel are Arab nations. They are all, including Iran, Islamic states. But Israel, founded for the very specific purpose of returning Jews to a heritage homeland of their own, cannot be recognized as a Jewish state whose religion is Judaism.

Palestinian Authority President Abbas once again insisted that Palestinians would never recognize Israel as a Jewish state, accusing Israel of establishing an apartheid government. Bearing in mind that Israel has given citizenship and equality rights to Arabs living within Israel, along with Druze and many other ethnic and religious groups, it would more accurately be described as a democratic liberal pluralist society. Whereas the Arab countries of the Middle East, which expelled its Jewish population, and oppress Christians could more accurately be considered apartheid states.

Speaking in Cairo during an emergency session of the Arab League with the foreign ministers present representing the Arab world, discussion revolved around a new Knesset bill which would remove any doubt whatever in law and convention that Israel is a Jewish state. The prospect of which has led to a general state of apoplexy in the corridors of power in the Middle East. That a Jewish State should have the effrontery to believe it could exist within the larger Islamic presence of the geography sends Arab politicians into a rage of rejection

Arab League

Reuters

And, of course, on Saturday the Arab League gave Chairman Abbas their full support, for nor would they see their way clear to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state; to do so would confer legitimacy upon Israel of a kind none are prepared to be part of. They also saw fit to support Mr. Abbas's threats to Israel that it intends to secure UN endorsement for the unilateral declaration of an independent Palestinian State, bypassing negotiations with Israel for agreement with a two-state solution leading to peace.

The Arab League foreign ministers agreed to submitting an "Arab proposal to the UN Security Council to end the [Israeli] occupation" of Palestinian land. And it promised to fully support Palestinian intention to seek out membership in UN agencies and international courts, announcing their "categorical rejection of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state". Evidently no discussion took place with respect to Hamas in all of this, let alone the violence continually directed against Israel which a mutual agreement between Israel and the Palestinians should be addressing.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas (C-L) seen attending an extraordinary Arab League meeting to discuss the situation in the Palestinian territories, in Cairo on November 29, 2014. (AFP)

Chairman Abbas's end-run around Israel and the settlement efficacy of peace talks has total approval by the Arab League whose ministers set up a committee comprised of Kuwait, Mauritania, Jordan and Nabil al-Araby, chief of the Arab League, to launch a mission to find international backing for the resolution they plan to present to the UN Security Council. Diplomatic sources feel that Jordan, an Arab member in the revolving membership of the Security Council could within days present the draft.

There will be no problem anticipated of a certainty in a plenitude of support from among European Union countries; think France, Denmark, Norway and Britain, for example; nor those of Latin America and Asia and Africa; a done deal.