{"id":1839,"date":"2014-07-17T21:02:19","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T21:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/?p=1839"},"modified":"2014-07-17T21:02:19","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T21:02:19","slug":"peace-in-israel-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/peace-in-israel-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Peace in Israel? (Part 4)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Barry Rosenfeld<\/p>\n

Part One<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0 Part Two<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0 Part Three<\/a>
\n
\nIsrael\u2014apartheid state?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The recent peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel failed in part because of the refusal on the part of the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The idea of a Jewish state goes back to 19th Century Zionism and the writings and efforts of Theodore Herzl. It is enshrined in the Balfour Declaration and stated in the UN resolution that formed Israel as a Jewish state where the resolution called for the formation of a \u201cJewish State\u201d and an \u201cArab State\u201d in the former British Mandate territory. The Palestinian claim that identification of Israel as a Jewish state would endanger the rights of the many Israeli Arabs living there is baseless in that the government of Israel protects the rights of all of its citizens regardless of race or religion. It is true that Israel is not solely a Jewish state in that it is also home to other population groups including Christians, Muslims, Druze and others, but the rights of these groups are protected and they are represented in the Knesset (parliament). Israel is being called an apartheid state due to its treatment of its minorities but in truth Arabs as well as Druze and others serve at all levels of its society with opportunities available for all.<\/p>\n

In 2010 when the Arab organization, Adalah, proposed a \u201cmulti-cultural\u201d Israeli constitution, Nabiah Nasser A-Din, chairman of the forum of the Druze and Circassian authority heads responded: \u201cThe state of Israel is a Jewish state as well as a democratic state that espouses equality and elections. We invalidate and reject everything that the Adalah organization is requesting.\u201d A-Din said that the fate of Druse and Circassians (an Israeli Arab community that emigrated in the 19th century from Russia to escape persecution), is intertwined with that of the state. \u201cThis is a blood pact, and a pact of the living. We are unwilling to support a substantial alteration to the nature of this state, to which we tied our destinies prior to its establishment,\u201d he added. (HaAretz)
\n

\"Aparthaid<\/a>

Aparthaid Wall?<\/p><\/div>
\nThe Druze is the only non-Jewish ethnic group in Israel that is drafted into the military where they serve in high positions. Five Druze MKs (parliament members) served in the 18th Knesset, a disproportionate number for the size of their community. In February of 2007, a Druze politician, Majalli Wahabi, served as the acting President of Israel. There are 12 Arabs serving in the present Knesset one of which is Druze. An Israeli Arab physician, Dr. Aziz Darawshe, heads the emergency medicine department at Jerusalem\u2019s Hadassah Hospital. Many of the doctors throughout Israel\u2019s health system, especially in the Galilee are Arabs.<\/p>\n

There are also Israeli Muslim Arabs serving in the Israeli military many of whom are women. Within the IDF there are entire units made up of Arab citizens. The highest ranking Muslim serving in the military is presently Ala Wahib. He is an operations officer at a key training base. Wahib sees himself as being both an Israeli Arab and a Zionist, saying, \u201cI believe in the Muslim faith, and I will never abandon it, but I think that Zionism is more than a religion. It is something that fully represents my sense of belonging to the State of Israel and to Israeli society, and the immense commitment I have to protecting and guarding the country of which I am part.\u201d Shirin Shlian, an Israeli female Arab soldier said, \u201cMany Arabs and Jews ask me why I joined the IDF. It must be the good education I received at home.\u201d (unitedwithisrael.org)<\/p>\n

But the fact remains that the Palestinians refuse to recognize the Jewish state since to do so would undermine their nationalistic drive to extinguish what they call the \u201cZionist entity\u201d and replace it with an Arab state. In the Palestinian Authority all maps show Israel as \u201cPalestine,\u201d not occupied territory but simply Palestine. PA leaders refuse to recognize a Jewish claim to the area saying rather that they have roots that go back far before there was ever any Jewish presence there.
\n(To be continuted)<\/p>\n

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By Barry Rosenfeld Part One \u00a0\u00a0 Part Two \u00a0\u00a0 Part Three Israel\u2014apartheid state? The recent peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel failed in part because of the refusal on the part of the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The idea of a Jewish state goes back to 19th Century Zionism more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[75,625,308,125,127,126],"class_list":{"0":"post-1839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorial","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-israeli-news","10":"tag-israeli-history","11":"tag-news-from-jerusalem","12":"tag-palestine","13":"tag-peace-process","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1840,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions\/1840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}