Arab Racism and the 'Jewish State'

by Khaled Abu Toameh

• First, Mansour Abbas did not "call" on the Palestinian people to recognize Israel. He simply stated the fact that Israel was "born as a Jewish state" and that "it will remain a Jewish state."
• Second, there is no connection between accepting Israel's Jewish identity and the Islamic holy sites, including the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Since 1967, in fact, Israel has allowed the Islamic religious authorities to have exclusive control over the mosque and other Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.
• Remarkably, since the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, the city has become a haven for coexistence and revitalized religious and cultural expression for all faiths. Freedom of worship at all holy sites is guaranteed for the faithful of all three monotheistic religions.
• Ironically, the Palestinian leadership's false claim that Israel is seeking to "harm" the al-Aqsa Mosque came as Palestinians made two attempts to set fire to Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, only because it is frequented by Jewish worshippers. The attempts, according to reports in the Palestinian media, were foiled at the last minute by the Palestinian security forces.
• Third, the Palestinian leadership's claim that recognition of Israel as a Jewish state "contradicts religion and history" should be seen in the context of the Palestinians' denial of any traces of Judaism in Jerusalem.
• Notably, while the PA says that it is strongly opposed to the idea of Israel being a Jewish state, it has no problem defining itself as "Arab" and "Islamic."
• There are 56 countries in which Islam plays a significant role. Many of them are countries with Islam as the state religion.
• The constitutions of several Arab countries, including Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Oman and Yemen, define them as Arab states where Islam is the religion of the state.
• It is worth considering the extreme hypocrisy of this situation: the Arabs (and the Palestinians) continue their long-held policy of defining their countries as "Arab" and "Islamic," while they deny Israel the right to refer to itself what it always has been -- the Jewish state.
• This does not bode well for any peace process that the Biden administration is hoping to revive between the Palestinians and Israel.
• Those who refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state are actually admitting that they do not believe in Israel's right to exist.

Palestinians and other Arabs are furious because Mansour Abbas -- an Arab member of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, and head of the United List Party -- announced that he recognizes Israel as a Jewish state. Abbas is being denounced as a "traitor" and "Zionist" by many Palestinians and Arabs who define their countries and political systems as "Arab" or "Islamic." Pictured: Abbas in the Knesset on September 2, 2021. (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)

Palestinians and other Arabs are furious because Mansour Abbas -- an Arab member of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, and head of the United List Party -- announced that he recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.

Abbas is being denounced as a "traitor" and "Zionist" by many Palestinians and Arabs who define their countries and political systems as "Arab" or "Islamic." They claim that the idea of a Jewish state is "racist" but seem not to feel the same way about openly Islamic states: The Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania

If the Palestinians, as well as Arab and Islamic countries, are labelling Israel as racist because it wants to define itself as a Jewish state, then they too are racists because they insist on defining themselves as "Arabs" and "Muslims."

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