By Hassan Mneimneh - senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
There is no fundamental reason to resist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state, despite its sizable Palestinian population. Surely Netanyahu is not suggesting any Israeli citizen be denied equal rights. Nor is he advocating the implementation of Halakah as the law of the land in Israel. He is merely demanding that Israel be treated as a nation like others; one that has the right to brandish the identity of its historical legacy. Netanyahu's concern may be his potential Palestinian interlocutors. However, his call for the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is an actual challenge to Arab culture as a whole to face the myths that stand as obstacles for the achievement of the cultural peace to which both Israelis and Arabs are entitled. It is a call for the end of cultural warfare against Israel. Arab cultural warfare against Israel may cost Arab societies relatively little in immediate visible damage; its effect on Palestinian and Israeli societies is however considerable.
In demanding the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, Netanyahu may as well be inviting the Palestinian side, and its wider Arab context, to address three Arab myths that converge into the illusory and destructive conclusion of the non-permanence of Israel.
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