Why is Israel "Wary"?

"U.S. Envoy Reassures and Presses a Wary Israel"
A14, Wednesday 6/10/09
By Isabel Kershner

If Obama’s current Mideast peace push is making Israel "wary," Times readers may find it difficult to understand the real reasons why.

Summarizing the U.S.-Israel dispute over settlements, Kershner accurately cites the U.S. position as “an unequivocal halt to all settlement activity”. She then imprecisely cites the Israeli position as “no new settlements, but building within existing ones should be allowed.”

In actuality, the Israeli position speaks of continued building within existing settlement blocs, not simply in existing settlements. The distinction is key since it has been widely agreed – by the U.S. and even by the Palestinian Authority (PA) – that these blocs will be kept by Israel in any future agreement. There are many existing settlements, outside Israel’s West Bank barrier, in which the Israeli government does not plan to build.

Kershner further makes the Israeli position seem hawkish by needlessly stating that it comes from Israel’s “hawkish” prime minister. Several paragraphs later she correctly fashions the Israeli position on settlements as one of consensus:

“While the Israeli leadership does not speak in one voice on all issues, there has been a certain uniformity regarding the settlements.”

Kershner states that Mitchell’s reference to Israel as a Jewish state was a “nod to Netanyahu, who says that Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is essential for any peace deal.”

Stating this is "a nod to Netanyahu" diminishes the importance of this fundamental requirement for peace. The refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is not simply a PA tactic to keep alive the right of return, as Kershner posits, but one to deny the legitimacy of Jewish statehood, thereby perpetuating the conflict.

Recently commenting on this Palestinian position, cabinet minister Moshe Ya’alon stated that “in the (Palestinian) view, one state should be the Palestinian state and the national identity of the other state should remain undefined, so that in the future it can become a Palestinian state as well.”

Kershner writes of the Palestinian refusal: they say “it would contradict the Palestinian refugees’ demand for a right of return and that it is detrimental to the status of Israel’s Arab citizens”.

First, it is widely understood that the right of return is anathema to the two-state vision; Second, the PA recently, and again, retracted its offer to accept Jewish citizens in a new Palestinian state, rendering hollow their concern for minority rights in Israel. While Kershner was fair in citing the Palestinian position, she should have reported on how that position measures up to reality.

Revealingly, reference to the deep PA-Hamas rift – considered almost an afterthought – is left for the article’s end. Juxtaposed next to the President’s recent call for a Palestinian state within two years (unreported), this reality would make all the more understandable Israel’s wariness of, and Netanyahu’s reluctance to publicly endorse, a Palestinian state.