I mentioned it previously here and here are some excerpts:-
A group of prominent Israeli Arabs has called on Israel to stop defining itself as a Jewish state and become a “consensual democracy for both Arabs and Jews,” prompting consternation and debate across the country. Their contention is part of “The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel,” a report published in December under the auspices of the Committee of Arab Mayors in Israel, which represents the country’s 1.3 million Arab citizens, about a fifth of the population. Some 40 well-known academics and activists took part.
They call on the state to recognize Israeli Arab citizens as an indigenous group with collective rights, saying Israel inherently discriminates against non-Jewish citizens in its symbols of state, some core laws, and budget and land allocations.
Last month, a Muslim Arab legislator from the Labor Party, Ghaleb Majadele, was named a government minister, the first in Israel’s history...in an interview, Mr. Majadele distanced himself from the new document, saying that pragmatic political action would help the Arab sector more than any ideological program. “The fact is that Israel is a Jewish state, a state with a Jewish majority,” he said. “Can we change that reality with words?”
...both Jewish conservatives and liberals have been taken aback by some propositions in the document. Many are angered by its description of Israel as the outcome of a “settlement process initiated by the Zionist Jewish elite” in the West and realized by “colonial countries” in the wake of the Holocaust.
Jewish critics argue that the Future Vision report negates Israel’s legitimacy and raison d’être as the realization of Jewish self-determination; further, they say it undermines the idea of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, since that implies the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish one.
In January, the senior fellows and board of the Israel Democracy Institute...wrote a response expressing “severe anguish” over the document’s contents. Prof. Shimon Shamir...[wrote]...the Future Vision document “evokes a sense of threat.”
Amazing how non-Jews 'force' Jews to be Jewish.
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1 comment:
I know many of us on the "Right" are smiling, saying to the Left "see, we were correct, the Arabs will never make peace", but I think it is a mistake to think that this means were are going to see national solidarity in the future like that which existed up to, say, the Yom Kippur War. Having a common enemy is NOT the basis for making a national identity. If that was so, then the Palestinians wouldn't be shooting it out with each other, for that matter the Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq both equally Israel and Jews and yet they are killing each other. Also the European Union could have been created centuries ago since everyone there hated Jews also. Thus, it doesn't work for them, and it won't work for us, either. Any increased unity we may have now due to the Lebanon II war and the rocket attaks on Sederot won't last long. The despair that the Left feels will simply push them even further away from Zionism. Already Shlomo Ben-Ami and even "centrists" like Efraim Inbar are calling on foreigners to come in and "control the Palestinians" for us. It is not to far a stretch then to say that the Israeli state and IDF should be dismantled since these extremist Leftists may convince themselves that once we are back under foreign domination, like we were under the British Mandate, international hostility will stop.
We have to build a positive national identity based on Jewish roots and sources. However, this will not be easy since there are still anti-religious and anti-nationalist elements here that will fight tooth and nail against any such attempt to education the people in a Jewish way. Our work is cut out for us!
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