Some Israelis Question Insistence on Israel as Jewish State

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JERUSALEM — The more stridently Israel insists on Palestinian recognition of it as the nation-state of the Jewish people, the more adamantly the Palestinian leadership seems to refuse.

As a result, some senior Israeli officials are beginning to question the wisdom of the policy of their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made recognition of the legitimacy of the Jewish nation-state a prerequisite for any final agreement with the Palestinians.

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"Of course we are a Jewish state," Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, told an audience attending a conference on the Future of the Jewish People last week, organized by the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem.

"But we have to make sure we do not get on a slippery slope," he continued, "where our justifiable demands become prohibitive obstacles" along the way to a deal, particularly so early on.

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"Only when our peace partners are willing to recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state," Mr. Netanyahu said Friday at the same conference, "will they truly be prepared to end the conflict and make a lasting peace with Israel."

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The Palestinian leadership insists that it is enough to recognize the State of Israel, as the P.L.O. did as part of the Oslo agreement in 1993.

"The issue of recognition is settled, it is done," said Muhammad Shtayyeh, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team, in a telephone interview from Ramallah.

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Dismissing the Geneva Accord as an effort of private individuals, Mr. Shtayyeh and other Palestinians argue that recognition of Israel as the Jewish state will negate their demand for a right of return for Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war and their descendants, before any negotiation. They also say it undermines the status of the Palestinian-Arab citizens who make up 20 percent of Israel’s population, and who are afforded equal rights in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/world/middleeast/25israel.html