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Accepting Israel as the Jewish State

(National Review) Daniel Pipes - Arab-Israeli diplomacy has dealt with a myriad of subsidiary issues while tiptoeing around the conflict's central issue: "Should there be a Jewish state?" Disagreement over the answer to that question - rather than over Israel's boundaries, its exercise of self-defense, its control of the Temple Mount, its water consumption, its housing construction in West Bank towns, diplomatic relations with Egypt, or the existence of a Palestinian state - is the key issue. Among the Palestinian and the broader Arab and Muslim publics, polls suggest a long-term average of 20% acceptance of Israel, whether in the Mandatory period or now. The Middle East Forum commissioned Pechter Middle East Polls to ask a thousand adults in each of four countries: "Under the right circumstances, would you accept a Jewish state of Israel?" The results: 26% of Egyptians and 9% of urban Saudis answered "yes," as did 9% of Jordanians and 5% of Lebanese. The writer is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
2010-05-12 08:42:21
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