The answer is no: the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Great Jamahiriya and the Islamic Republic of Iran are the official names of just a few of Israel's neighbors, near and distant. Assad's own Syrian constitution's Article 1 declares that "the Syrian Arab region is a part of the Arab homeland" and its citizens are "part of the Arab nation."
Even more to the point is the way Palestinians define themselves. Fatah and Hamas in combination speak for the majority of Palestinians. The Fatah-controlled PA has promulgated a Palestinian Basic Law, Article 4 of which proclaims, "Islam is the official religion in Palestine" and "the principles of Islamic Sharia shall be the main source of legislation." Article 116 states, "laws shall be promulgated in the name of the Palestinian Arab people."
Note: not Palestinians, irrespective of ethnic or religious identity, but Palestinian Arabs. No comparable clause is to be found in Israel's Basic Laws.
Abbas has stated clearly that a Palestinian state is to be Jew-free: "I will not accept one Israeli to remain on Palestinian territory." PA law imposes a death penalty for the sale of land to a Jew. Rejecting Jewish sovereignty and murdering those who sold land to Jews was precisely the situation when Palestinians rejected a Jewish state as part of the 1947 UN partition plan, which proposed the creation of an Arab state and a Jewish state in the British Mandate of Palestine.
Hamas, in its Charter (which not so incidentally calls in Article 7 for the global murder of Jews) states, "Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Koran its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief."
Therefore, not only do Israel's Arab foes define their own existence in explicit national and religious terms, but they base their political orientation on these criteria to an exclusive, reactionary degree. In contrast, democratic norms enunciated in basic laws and the rule of law enforced by secular courts define the Israeli experience.
In some Arab regimes, Jews are permitted as a docile minority. In others, like Hamas-run Gaza, even that state of affairs would be rejected as intolerably liberal were there any Jews still there. In Saudi Arabia, non-Muslims cannot enter Mecca, and no churches or synagogues may be built.
Even in relatively moderate Jordan, Jews are debarred from citizenship by law. One can only imagine what these regimes would say if Israel promulgated laws in respect of Arabs that they have enacted in respect of Jews.
These are not mere technical or legalistic details. They point to the heart of the conflict. Arab regimes do not reject Israel because they disapprove of its policies. They disapprove of Israel's existence because it is not Arab. Expect therefore no conclusion to the peace process de jour until this changes.
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