67 Days to Go

Making our Demands Known

By Sherwin Pomerantz

With 67 days to go before the scheduled opening of the UN General Assembly in New York and the possible vote on Palestinian statehood there is a lot of diplomatic action going on in order to avert what could be a difficult “day after” situation.

It is becoming more and more evident as the days go on that everyone involved in the process, even the Palestinian Arab leadership, would like to find some way to put something in place that would permit everyone to back off the vote initiative without losing face. Anyone who has spent any time at all in this region knows that, above all, saving face is the most important element of any negotiation.

The demands of the Palestinian Arab leadership remain somewhat unrealistic. They continue to demand that before they will come to the negotiating table Israel must stop building anywhere over the green line including the areas around Jerusalem. This is a particularly unrealistic demand as even their leadership understands that the ring communities around Jerusalem, for example, will remain within Israel under any future peace deal, should it be attainable.

The southern suburb of Gilo is one case in point. Of course building will continue there as even though it is over the green line, the tens of thousands of people who live there within less than a 5-minute drive to the center of Jerusalem will be included in Israel under all circumstances. Other communities are in that category as well.

Having said that there does appear to be some desire on the part of the Palestinians to find a way to come to the table. In recent days the Israeli government has also put some conditions on the table pre-requisite to our returning to negotiations. As of this morning, it now appears that our government is ready to begin negotiations based on the 1967 armistice lines with land swaps if the Quartet (i.e. EU, US, Russian & the UN) is prepared to speak officially about Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.

My readers will recall that in the past the Palestinian leadership has said that they are prepared to recognize Israel but not to do so as the national homeland of the Jewish people. This, even though the international community and the Israeli government have acceded to the fact that when a Palestinian state is put in place, it will be recognized as the national home of the Palestinian people.

These are important issues which are critical to forward movement and represent verbiage that is used throughout this region. Recognition of Israel as the legitimate national homeland of the Jewish people carries with it the acknowledgement that we have a 3,500 year history in this land, that based on that history we have a legitimate claim to this land as our homeland and that the family of nations recognizes this historical fact. It is because of these reasons that our negotiators have made a point of demanding this language be used in any future negotiation that will lead to the end of the conflict.

I have no way of telling if the Palestinian Arab leadership will accept this or not. But what is equally important is that both our government and the Jewish people worldwide understand and internalize this fact which then enables us to defend our right to be here in the context of human history.

The words of the Declaration of Statehood of Israel in 1948 are clear and still valid:

"(We) hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel to be known as the State of Israel. …Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations."

All that is desired by those of us living here today is to realize in fact what the declaration stated in principle.