Ottolenghi - The Real Palestinian Vision: A Judenrein Palestine

Emanuele Ottolenghi
Wall Street Journal
22 June '11
H/T Challah Hu Akbar


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303936704576397153500775840.html
Mahmoud Abbas sees a state free of Jews.

The Obama administration is busy renewing its push for Middle East peace talks and the Europeans aren't far behind. But how can these talks succeed when the Palestinians clearly don't support democratic ideals?

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told the Arab League late last month that the future Palestinian state should be free of all Israelis, noting that their eviction could take place "in stages." Although he didn't explicitly single out Jews, there are few Christian, Druze and Muslim Israeli citizens living in the West Bank and Gaza. His message couldn't be clearer: a Palestinian state will be Judenrein, or free of Jews.

This is a disturbing vision, to say the least. No one who knows Mr. Abbas's history, however, should be surprised: He is a Palestinian nationalist who once wrote a thesis denying the Holocaust, and has shown little interest in a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

...Israelis harbor no illusions about Palestine's democratic credentials. The Israeli government has always been adamant that no Israeli citizens would be left behind a future border. Israelis remember well the fate of Jews under Muslim rule in the past: Even when protected by benevolent rulers, Jews often encountered persecution, expulsion and the occasional wholesale massacre. Under Muslim rule, access to holy places was restricted, and many were desecrated and destroyed.

Why would it be different this time? More often than not, minorities' fate in the Middle East has been bloody and cruel. Shia suffer under Sunni rule and vice versa; Berbers and Kurds have never enjoyed the rights claimed for Palestinians; Christians are under attack everywhere in the region except Israel; Iran persecutes its Bahai, Christian and Jewish minorities; Turkey refuses to recognize its own Kurdish minority; and even in Lebanon, democratic tolerance is in decline.

The U.S. and EU, as Western democracies, profess to hold those values dear. But a state that aspires to be free of Jews cannot be a democracy. Any talks that pretend otherwise are simply foolish.

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