Q. In the course of last week's visit by US emissary George Mitchell, both he and PM Netanyahu used the term "Jewish state", a definition immediately rejected by PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat. What is behind this controversy?

A.  Netanyahu stated that Israel would not enter negotiations over creation of a Palestinian state until and unless the Palestinians declared they recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Mitchell presented the vision of Israel as a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state as the end-product of two-state negotiations. Erekat reiterated Palestinian refusal to "define" Israel . He also argued that in 1948 the US had refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

By this week, Netanyahu's office had leaked that the prime minister would negotiate with anyone unconditionally--an intriguing hint that the Netanyahu government might even be open to contact with Hamas--while allowing that it would be difficult to conclude negotiations successfully without Palestinian acknowledgement of Israel 's Jewish identity. That, and Tony Blair's statement, based on a conversation with Netanyahu, that the Israeli prime minister wanted to build a Palestinian state "from the bottom up", put Netanyahu closer than ever to the Obama government position that Israel and the PLO must renew two-state negotiations unconditionally. It also indicated just how quickly and easily Netanyahu responds to American political pressure. Mitchell's timely reference to a Jewish state undoubtedly helped.

Thus the "Jewish state" issue appears to be behind us for the moment. But it won't go away. In recent years, Israeli Jews across the political spectrum have lined up behind this term. The reasons should not be ignored.

The term first appears in UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947, the founding document of the two-state solution. It calls for the creation of "Arab and Jewish states" in Mandatory Palestine. Accordingly, Israel's Declaration of Independence of 1948 incorporated the term "Jewish state" (even though David Ben Gurion reportedly preferred the secular term "state of the Jewish people") in order to signal that the new state conformed with the will of the United Nations.

In the ensuing decades, Israel made peace with Egypt and Jordan without insisting on recognition as a Jewish state. It was only the most determined attempt thus far to solve the Palestinian issue, culminating at Camp David in July 2000, that reintroduced the term. The Barak government, followed by the Israeli polity in general, emerged from that abortive experience convinced that at least some Palestinian advocates of a two-state solution, led by Yasser Arafat, envisioned it very differently than Israelis. Arafat was understood to want a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza alongside a state of Israel that, through the natural growth of the Israeli Arab population coupled with the return of 1948 refugees and illegal migration of Palestinians, would soon become a bi-national state and would eventually be thoroughly "Palestinized". 

In the post-Camp David years, Israelis focused in particular on Arafat's emphatic demand that Israel accept and implement the "right of return" of the refugees--thereby seemingly acknowledging that it was "born in sin" in 1948 and was therefore illegitimate--along with his refusal to recognize Israel's demand that a final status agreement reflect the Jewish historic and religious heritage of the Temple Mount (Arafat: "There never was a Jewish temple on the 'Temple Mount'"). These sentiments and demands were understood as reflecting an ongoing Palestinian and broader Arab refusal to accept the Jews as a people with legitimate national rights and a concomitant insistence that Judaism is nothing but a religion whose roots in the Middle East are apocryphal. While Israel was successful in ending its conflict with two neighboring Arab states without delving too deeply into these issues, it could not and should not ignore them in negotiating an end-of-conflict agreement with the PLO, lest this leave open the door to further claims upon Israel and de-legitimization of its basic character.

It was Tzipi Livni, then a junior minister in the Sharon government, who several years ago refined this thinking into a new formula for addressing the right of return issue. Harking back to 181, Livni argued that the Palestinian demand for the return of refugees must be confined to return to the Palestinian state and not Israel, lest it contradict the "Jewish state" provision of 181--a resolution the PLO accepted in 1988 in opting for a two-state solution. Thus it was not surprising that Livni tried to introduce to the 2007 Annapolis declaration the notion of "two nation states for the two peoples". She failed: after all, the roadmap upon which Annapolis was based talks only of "two states".

Erekat, incidentally, was wrong about US recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. As Richard Holbrooke, a biographer of Clark Clifford, has pointed out, the original American draft declaration of recognition of Israel called it a "Jewish state", essentially because President Truman was waiting to be informed of the name of the new state. "State of Israel ", a last-minute decision by the Jewish leadership in Palestine , was entered in Clifford's handwriting, with "Jewish state" crossed out. Nowhere was this intended to imply that the US somehow rejected Israel as a Jewish state. Had the Israeli founding fathers adopted an alternative proposed name, " Judea ", things might have been clearer.

Still, both Netanyahu and Erekat have valid points. If they don't recognize Israel as a Jewish state yet want Israel to accept a final status agreement that puts all claims to rest, Palestinians will have to find some other persuasive formula for reassuring Israel that they acquiesce in the Jewish national link to the Land of Israel. On the other hand, Israel should not require the affirmation or involvement of its neighbors in determining its national nature. This is a task for Israelis.

Q. As President Obama's interactive regional strategy for the Middle East begins to emerge, what are the potential issues of controversy and contention--besides the two-state solution and the "Jewish state"--that Israel and the United States might confront?

A. At this early stage, I can think of seven that might require some discussion and possibly compromise:

1. There is a presumed conflict between the American and Israeli concepts of the way in which an Israeli-Palestinian peace process might be linked to progress toward US-Iran detente that is based on Iran renouncing a military nuclear option. While Obama's integrated regional approach would appear to dictate some sort of linkage, this has not been addressed officially by the administration.  Media and academic speculation focuses on an American position that progress toward a two-state solution is necessary to facilitate Obama's efforts vis-a-vis Iran, and a stand attributed to Netanyahu whereby he reverses the order and seeks American clarifications regarding Iran before he takes risks in talks with the Palestinians.

2. If at some point Israel concludes that all alternatives have failed and a threat is imminent, can it attack Iran without a green or even yellow light from Washington ? The logistics and geography of an Israeli attack would seem to mandate prior coordination with US forces in the region and possibly with Arab states as well. If this is the case, then Israel 's threats to deal militarily with Iran aren't serious and Washington and Jerusalem have to sit down for a serious talk about the military option.

3. How can Washington persuasively launch a two-state peace process in view of the status of Palestinian politics? The leadership in Ramallah is weak, the Fateh movement has not been reformed, Hamas rules Gaza and is currently the stronger and more dynamic Palestinian movement.

4. And in view of the status of Israeli politics? Almost every Israeli government for the past 20 years has fallen over the Palestinian issue. The exception that proves the rule is Olmert's recent fall, generated by corruption charges against him: Livni's subsequent effort to form a new coalition failed largely over Shas' demand that she not negotiate Jerusalem with the PLO. Even a cursory examination of the composition of both Netanyahu's coalition and the Likud Knesset faction suggests that, assuming it does enter willingly into negotiations, the current government will not survive a determined effort to reach a final status agreement.

5. Can the weak and fragmented Arab state system deliver on what Obama and Israel need: support for painful peace agreements within the framework of the Arab Peace Initiative; support for a possible dangerous confrontation with Iran ? Egypt 's current accusations against Hezbollah and its Iranian patron illustrate just how fragile the Sunni Arab polity has become, and how dynamic are the radical forces in the region.

6. Can Israel and the US agree on the parameters of a Syria-Israel peace deal? For example, Washington might conceivably be more lenient than Israel concerning ways to verify that Syria is distancing itself from Iran and its allies. On the other hand, Israel may not hesitate to acquiesce in Syrian hegemony in Lebanon if that can seal the deal, whereas the US will presumably demur.

7. Finally, an issue the US and Israel thus far have apparently not begun to talk about. As the American withdrawal from Iraq begins, Israel could become jittery regarding the prospect that unrest and disintegration and/or creeping Iranian hegemony in Iraq will threaten its security interests. This could, for example, find expression in a reluctance to withdraw from the Golan or to put withdrawal from the JordanValley on the negotiating table with the Palestinians, citing the need for Israel to counter possible renewed military threats from the east.