Yes, Israel is a Jewish state

Claiming otherwise only hurts the peace process

John Kerry
(Image credit: (T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images))

It would be nice to think that the strenuous efforts of our indefatigable secretary of state to jumpstart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have a realistic chance of success. But they don’t. The problem isn’t just that, contrary to all sense, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to expand settlement activity in the West Bank. And it isn’t only that, just as direct talks are getting under way for the first time in years, the Palestinians appear to be ramping up their charming tendency to quote Adolf Hitler admiringly in schoolroom textbooks.

As the controversy surrounding Netanyahu’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" makes clear, the most intractable obstacle to peace is that so many people — in the Middle East and in the United States, on the sidelines and at the negotiating table — persist in demonstrating delusional thinking about the conflict.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.