Palestinian recognition of Israel,

a Jewish state – Why?

By Monzer Zimmo

Why do Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and

other Zionist leaders insist that “without Palestinian
recognition that Israel is the state of the Jewish people,
there will not be peace”? They have declared themselves
as such. They enjoy the support of most European
nations, United States of America, Canada, Australia,
and many other countries in the world that have no
problem whatsoever in describing the state of Israel as
such. Many Arab countries – with leaders suffering from
near-sighted vision – would have no problem going
along with that concept. Almost every country with
significant military, economic, or diplomatic power and
influence either fully agrees with the description of the
state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people or has no
real problem with it. So, why does the Israeli leadership
insist on demanding that recognition from the
powerless, penniless Palestinian leadership?

Here are some thoughts in that regard:

Some say that the likes of Netanyahu and Lieberman
enjoy humiliating Palestinians. Insisting on that demand
gives the Israeli leadership the opportunity to further
add the insult of surrender to the 62-year old injury of
the open wound of the Palestinian people. Gaining such
recognition or not is of little relevance. Continuing to
insult the Palestinian people and to humiliate its
leadership is what matters to those Israeli leaders; for
that is their aphrodisiac.

Some say that the Israeli leadership does not see peace
to be in the best interest of their Zionist experiment in
Palestine, for peace would bring the Zionist expansionist
project to an end. Therefore, in order to eliminate any
chance for peace, Israeli leaders demand that which they
know would be impossible for any Palestinian leader to
accept, even if he/she were sympathetic to it. No
Palestinian leader would dare even to ask the question,
let alone make the decision to grant such recognition.
Therefore, the Zionist leaders would use Palestinian
rejection of Israel as the state of the Jewish people to
not have peace, blame it on the Palestinians, and
continue with their expansionist Zionist project with the
strongest military in the Middle East backed by the
unconditional support of the United States of America.
Some say that the Zionist leaders wish to extract a final
Palestinian declaration of surrender and acceptance of
defeat, thereby declaring total victory for the Zionist
project. In spite of the Palestinians’ loss of
their country, the ethnic cleansing that never stopped
since 1948, the inhumane impoverished conditions
under which millions of Palestinians have been living for
more than sixty-two years, and the international
acquiescence to covering up the Zionist crimes in
Palestine, the Palestinian people never accepted defeat
and continued their resistance against the Zionist
project that sought their annihilation as a people. A
Palestinian recognition of the state of Israel as the state
of the Jewish people would give the Zionists their much-
needed satisfaction – which they never enjoyed – of a
total undisputed victory.

Some say that such Palestinian recognition eliminates

the Palestine refugees’ Right of Return that is enshrined
in international law, and specified in UN General
Assembly Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948.
Paragraph 11 of resolution 194 states that the UN
General Assembly “Resolves that the refugees wishing to
return to their homes and live at peace with their
neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest
practicable date, and that compensation should be paid
for the property of those choosing not to return and for
loss of or damage to property which, under principles of
international law or in equity, should be made good by
the Governments or authorities responsible.”). A
Palestinian recognition of the state of Israel as the state
of the Jewish people would render implementing this
long-overdue resolution 194 to be in conflict and
inconsistent with such recognition, for none of the
Palestine refugees is Jewish.

Some say that the Zionist demand of Palestinian

recognition of the state of Israel as the state of the
Jewish people would have as much impact on the future
as it would on the past. In addition to accepting that
the Zionists were victorious, such a Palestinian
recognition would offer a prior tacit approval for any
future act that the “Jewish” state would do to protect its
“Jewish character” in the future; including further ethnic
cleansing of non-Jewish Israeli citizens every time their
numbers threaten the solid Jewish majority that would
be necessary to maintain that “Jewish character” of the
state. Since virtually all Muslim and Christian Israeli
citizens are Palestinians, a Palestinian recognition of the
state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people would do
away with – or significantly weaken – all citizenship
rights those Palestinian-Israelis had, have, or will have
in the future. Such recognition would deal a significant
blow to Palestinians’ struggle for equal citizenship
rights in their own country, and prepare the grounds for
their ethnic cleansing sooner or later.

In addition to all of the above, there is one more

explanation for why Zionist leaders demand Palestinian
recognition of the state of Israel as the state of the
Jewish people. Zionist leaders know that their state is
not legitimate. They know that they built their state
over the fresh ruins of Palestinian society. They know
that their state of Israel was born in sin; ethnic
cleansing, murder, terror, deliberate mass killing of
civilians, land robbery, etc. They further know that they
are at the height of their power; they enjoy the
unconditional military, political, economic, and
diplomatic support of the only superpower on the planet
Earth. They also know that the Palestinian leadership is
at its lowest point in its history, desperate, powerless,
unpopular among its own people, penniless, totally
dependent on the Israeli most powerful ally, and
incapable of counter balancing the power of the state of
Israel; locally, regionally, or internationally. Taking all
of these facts into consideration, Netanyahu and
Lieberman and people around them smell blood. They
see in this current Palestinian leadership their best
chance to get the most valuable prize of them all;
legitimacy. By extracting such recognition from the
Palestinian leadership, the Zionist leaders believe that
they would be gaining Palestinian recognition of the
legitimacy of the Zionist project, legitimacy of all past
Zionist actions, legitimacy for all future Zionist actions
against the Palestinian people anywhere, and legitimacy
for all future Zionist actions targeting any form of
Palestinian resistance or struggle for equality against
the exclusionary nature of the Zionist experiment in
Palestine.

In demanding that Palestinians recognize the state of

Israel to be the state of the Jewish people, the Zionist
leadership is seeking from its victims to legitimize its
crimes against them. In this demand, the rapist is
seeking from its rape victim to testify in the Court of
history that the act of rape was legitimate. However,
regardless of the balance of power, regardless of
blockades, regardless of ethnic cleansing, regardless of
the volume of suffering, regardless of apartheid,
regardless of destruction, regardless of ugly racism,
regardless of hourly discrimination, regardless of
unspeakable crimes, regardless of any threat, regardless
of any fantasy Zionists might harbour, regardless of the
divided Palestinian house, and even if Palestinians face
total annihilation from the face of the Earth, the Zionist-
sought Palestinian recognition to legitimize the Zionist
crimes against the Palestinian people will never happen.
Under certain circumstances, Palestinians would
have the capacity to forgive the Zionist crimes; but to
give them legitimacy… Naaaayyyy!

Monzer Zimmo
Ottawa, Ontario
2010/09/07

http://alcanaanite.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/palestin
ian-recognition-of-israel-a-jewish-state-why/

http://www.gilad.co.uk/