The True Jewish State Issue Is Jewish Right To Citizenship

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
23 September '10

Does a Jew from Boston, Buenos Aires or Bombay have the right to step off the plane at Ben Gurion Airport and become an Israeli citizen simply because he is a Jew?

He does today, under the Law of Return.

When an Israeli Arab says Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" rather than a "Jewish state", what he is really saying if that he wants the Law of Return to be repealed.

Sure, some Jews might be allowed in on humanitarian grounds, but unless there were some serious pogroms in Pittsburgh, aliyah from North America would be a thing of the past under the "state of all its citizens" scheme.

The Israeli Arab leadership doesn't conceal this. It has been written up working papers prepared by various Israeli Arab bodies. Many of which, curiously, receive funding from the very same American Jews whose option to become an Israeli citizen they wish to deny.

Again. The dispute over "Jewish state" versus "state of all its citizens" isn't over state symbols, holidays, or even funding for religious institutions.

It's over the Law of Return.

A law that does indeed express the very essence of the Jewish state reborn after generations of exile.

"The Arab Israeli population, after many years, is going to be a challenge demographically to the Jewish State of Israel" predicted Jordan's King Abdullah in an interview with Israel Television Channel 1 last 28 August.

Creating the circumstances that the Law of Return is somehow repealed is part of the strategy to make that challenge possible.

The refusal of the PA leadership to include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as part of the "package" isn't a matter of rhetoric. I reflects their hope that one day King Abdullah's prediction will come true.

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