Jimmy Carter, History and the Jewish State
Former President Jimmy Carter is apparently confused about the Israeli demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish state. And the historical record seems to elude him as well. The Associated Press reports on an interview with President Carter:
Various Israeli politicians have been declaring the “two-state” solution of a separate Palestinian and Israeli nations dead, and many are demanding that the Palestinians and Arabs formally recognize Israel as a Jewish state in order to discuss the Palestinian issue.
“I don’t see how the Palestinians or the Arab world can accept that premise, that Israel is an exclusively Jewish state,” Carter said.
“This has never been put forward in any of the negotiations in which I was involved as president, or any president, before (Benjamin) Netanyahu became prime minister this time. And now it has been put into the forefront of consideration,” he added.
About a fourth of Israel’s people are Arab or other non-Jewish citizens.
“Israel can claim ‘We are a Jewish state.’ I don’t think the Arab countries will contradict that Jewish statement. But to force the Arab people to say that all the Arab people that they have in Israel have to be Jews, I think that’s going too far,” Carter said.
Both President Clinton and President George W. Bush have encountered the Israeli demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state put forward by the administrations of three Israeli prime ministers prior to Netanyahu.
First, a few days ago, American negotiator Dennis Ross noted that the Israeli demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish state came up during and immediately following the Camp David negotiations. Later, in 2003, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon listed Palestinian recognition of the Jewish state as his sixth reservation to President Bush’s Mideast “road map.” Finally, during the Annapolis talks in 2007 under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the Israelis again raised the issue with President Bush.
Likewise, the presumption that recognition of Israel as the Jewish state is tantamount to an “exclusively Jewish state” is equally baseless.
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