Formally Recognizing Israel’s Jewishness Will Not Set Back Peace

The prospects of peace are set back by continued Palestinian Arab and wider rejection of Israel as a Jewish state within any borders – and by the Palestinian Authority's refusal to fulfill its obligations under the Oslo agreements to disarm, outlaw and arrest terrorists and to end incitement to hatred, and murder – not because Israel is duly affirming itself as the Jewish nation state.

Peace is also set back by countries, including some of Israel's friends, that are silent on PA incitement and pro-terror, anti-peace actions; that fail to demand of the Palestinians that they amend or rescind the Fatah and Hamas charters, which deny Jewish peoplehood and call for Israel's destruction; that choose not to insist that the Palestinians live up to their Oslo commitments; and that refuse to penalize Mahmoud Abbas's PA by terminating aid and diplomatic support for it as a result of these failures.

There is no reason to object to this legislation's purpose – the formal recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, as virtually the entire world recognizes it to be.