ISRAEL AS A JEWISH STATE

In the U.S. when one talks of a deadline these days it means August 2 when the government is threatened with financial default unless the current debt ceiling is raised by Congress above $14.3 trillion. But there is another deadline a month or so later which has multiple countries and other concerned participants scrambling for a solution, a solution not yet in sight. This involves the threat by the Palestinian Authority (PA) under President Abbas to bypass peace talks with Israel and go directly to the United Nations in September to seek recognition of Palestine an an independent state, which hopefully for Abbas would ultimately lead to membership in the United Nations.

The Palestinian threat to go to the U.N. for recognition came after the so-called peace process between Arab Palestine and Israel broke down last fall. The breakdown was triggered by Palestinian insistence on Israel halting the building of housing settlements on West Bank territory which the Palestinians envision as part of a new independent state. The Israeli response was "no" on a new moratorium while, at the same time, going ahead with approval of still more settlements.

What is interesting now is that the focus for getting peace talks resumed and heading off the U.N. strategy of the Palestinians seems to be not the settlements issue, which is still alive, but on Palestinian recognition of the existence of Israel as a Jewish state for the Jewish people. This issue has been around for a long time but seems to have taken on a new urgency. But this may not be any easier to achieve than dealing with the settlements as the threshold for re-starting the peace talks, particularly if Abbas settles his dispute with Hamas over the composition of a unified government. It may, however, reflect a growing Israeli awareness that the longer time goes by without a resolution of the Palestine independence problem, the less Israel may be a "Jewish state" as perceived since its creation in l948.

This point was made by no less a person than 87-year old Israeli President Shimon Peres, a long time participant in the Israeli-Palestinian/Arab wars and struggles for a peaceful solution. While insisting that the Palestinians would be making a mistake by declaring independence outside of a negotiated settlement, Peres said the failure to make such a deal threatens the Jewish character of Israel. "If there will be one state without a clear majority or an un-Jewish majority, that is against everything we are trying to work for," Peres told CNN in a recent interview. About the same time another unnamed Israeli official said the U.N. strategy could be averted and peace talks resumed by acknowledgment of Jewish sovereignty. Thus Jewishness and acknowledgment of such seems to have replaced settlements as the stumbling block for new talks.

A look at the demographics from an online FOREIGN AFFAIRS article gives substance to what Jewishness may mean to Peres and others. In l996, Israel had 5.7 million people; 15 years later this has climbed to 7.75 million. The population of Palestinian Arabs living in Israel has gone from 1.03 to 1.59 million, representing 27 percent of the population increase. At the same time, the ultra-orthodox Jewish population has gone from about 170,000 to 775,000 and is expected to become an increasing part of the future population. Thus, about 30 percent of Israel's population is made up currently of the two most antagonistic groups, neither of which is happy with the traditional values of Israel, including democratic governance, which is based on the cultural/political values of the European Jews who have long shaped the politics and economics of the country.

Further, about 20 percent of the Israeli population are Russians who arrived within the past 20 years with a background in authoritarianism, not democratic politics. This segment of the population has taken root in the far right wing of Israeli politics opposed to the existence of any independent Palestinian state.

Thus Peres' "Jewish" character of the Israeli state may itself be disappearing or undergoing a fundamental shift from the European-based character of the country of which he is a part. In its place is emerging a country splintered by various factions, with the right wing factions becoming the dominant political players while having a more traditionalist Netanyahou as Prime Minister presiding over an often unruly coalition. So when Peres views a peace settlement as urgent and time is running out, the question becomes running out for whom?

Netanyahou, who sometimes but not other times, seems ready for the peace process to resume has set preconditions for such resumption. Besides acceptance of a Jewish state by the Palestinians, he wants the Palestinians to give up the right of about 1.5 million refugees and their offspring to return to the homes they had within Israel in l948, and to have a security system that includes the presence of Israeli armed forces on the Jordan River, encompassing land of the future Palestinian state. For the Palestinians, these demands are nonstarters which require resolution farther down the line but not as preconditions to even get talks restarted.

The U.N. strategy has problems for all concerned. For Israel such recognition would mean international pressure to make a variety of political, economic , and military concessions in the future. For Abbas the U.N. strategy will lose him support of the U.S. and some western European countries who threatened to work against Abbas in rounding up U.N. votes and also jeopardize the $400 million in annual U.S. aid which the PA receives. For the U.S.. it has some significant non-winning elements since this country can hardly afford to further alienate the Arab world by still another bending over to Israel.

So if the debt-ceiling problem gets resolved, you can shift your attention to the next deadline in September at the U.N.