Haaretz, Israel’s most respected newspaper, sees it that way, according to a recent editorial titled “Netanyahu’s Distraction Maneuver.” The editorial suggests quite logically that “freezing the settlements is not a gesture deserving of recompense from the Palestinian side; it is a formal commitment the government of Israel took upon itself seven years ago under the road map for peace. The other side of the equation was a Palestinian commitment to take the measures necessary for stopping terror” – a commitment that the Palestinians have largely fulfilled.

There has been a drastic reduction in anti-Jewish violence in the West Bank. The small amount of it that still occurs is directed solely at Jews living there illegally, and often in direct response to settler-initiated attacks. This puts the lie to the fear of Israel being “vulnerable to terror,” which Oren raises in almost ritualistic fashion.

Yet, having offered the obvious explanation for the new demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state – to stall the peace process – Oren quickly rejects it. Instead, he says merely, “Affirmation of Israel’s Jewishness is the very foundation of peace.” If that were true – if the Arab’s failure to affirm Israel’s Jewishness is such a threat – why did Israel never demand it before? The argument makes no sense.

Nor, by the way, does the title of Oren’s op-ed make any sense: “An End to Israel’s Invisibility.” Israel will never be invisible, even if the Palestinians refuse forever to recognize its right to exist. But their leaders – including Hamas head Khaled Meshaal – have repeatedly conceded its right to exist. To say that Israel is “invisible,” simply because those Palestinian leaders hesitate to concede its uniquely Jewish character, is not logical. Like the whole column under the title, it’s sheer propaganda.

Logic and facts seem to be irrelevant for someone like Oren, whose Israeli identity is founded on the old myth of “they want to drive us into the sea.” Once that myth is embraced as a foundational premise, as it has been by all Israeli governments, truth must be twisted to reinforce and supposedly “prove” the premise. And the same premise is invoked to justify every distortion of fact and logic, as long as they make effective propaganda.

Oren does offer one fact and one argument that deserve serious consideration. It is a fact that, as Oren writes, “In 1947, the United Nations authorized the establishment of ‘an independent Jewish state.'” (His citation of the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1922 League of Nations’ endorsement are disingenuous, since they were worded carefully to avoid endorsement of a Jewish state. And whether one UN resolution makes “the Jewish right to statehood a tenet of international law” must be open to question.)

The argument, “Just as Israel recognizes the existence of a Palestinian people with an inalienable right to self-determination in its homeland, so, too, must the Palestinians accede to … our right to sovereignty there,” makes a strong case for sharing the land – a case that Palestinian leaders conceded in the late 1980s when they endorsed the two-state solution.

Why, then, have the Palestinians hesitated so long to endorse the UN’s view of Israel as a Jewish state? They know what’s at stake, and they want a genuine assurance of independence and peace before they take such a drastic step. The ellipsis in the preceding quote from Oren reveals what’s at stake; that’s where he demands that the Palestinians accede to “the Jewish people’s 3,000-year connection to our homeland.” Again, that’s the formula right-wing Jews use to justify Jewish rule over the whole West Bank, as the Palestinians know very well.

What’s more, Palestinians know that the right wingers also want to use the “Jewish state” formulation to keep Palestinian Arabs living inside Israel second-class citizens. Who can doubt it after the Knesset recently passed a law requiring a loyalty oath to Israel as a Jewish state, not for all new citizens, but only for those who are not Jewish.

The perceptive Israeli journalist Aluf Benn suggests that this new law, all of the other anti-Palestinian laws now under consideration and the insistence that the world recognize Israel as a Jewish state are all motivated by a domestic political concern. Israeli Arabs usually vote on the left. So “the more the Arab community is pushed off the political playing field … the further away the left will get from the possibility of a majority, and right-wing governments will prevail for generations.”

You won’t hear anything like that from Oren. Instead, you’ll hear a continuing stream of ill-informed, illogical propaganda to perpetuate the myth of an implacable, anti-Semitic Palestinian people bent only on destroying Israel. That myth – not the understandable hesitation of Palestinians to embrace the idea of a Jewish state privileging Jewish people – keeps Israeli Jews locked in their self-made ghetto of perpetual insecurity. (Posted by Bulatlat.com)

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