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Onus is on Arabs to accept and integrate

November 24, 2016 22:00

Do I fear a "one-state solution"? No. The key, however, is whether the Arabs themselves wish to fuse themselves into Israel, the Jewish state, which seeks to preserve its geography, heritage and identity as the expression Jewish nationhood. The onus of coexistence lies on their shoulders.

Of course, "fusion" is not a rejection of the religious, cultural and ethnic reality of the Arab. However, recent demands for recognition as an institutional, autonomous ethnic community, replacing the Knesset and its laws, can only be viewed as pursuing war by other means.

Israel cannot but defend itself through full pursuit of democratic safeguards, no less than other states.

Acceptance by Arabs of a non-majority status, unlike their status in some two-dozen other states, is crucial. And there is another one-state principle: there must be at least an agreement that Jews have the right, indeed the obligation, to maintain their one state.

If, however, we witness a continued growth of Islamic fundamentalism, a Palestinianisation of Israel's Arabs and the non-acceptance of the Zionist character of Israel, in addition to the Arab refusal to enter national service programmes and the continued low tax payment levels, for example, then there is only one conclusion: the Arabs do not want a Jewish state.

In short, Palestinian identity must no longer be defined by the desire to deny Jews their state.

November 24, 2016 22:00

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