Both Jewish and Democratic

Recent Israeli demands and Arab refusal to recognize it as the Jewish State highlight a major facet of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: the rejection to accept Israel as the Jewish nation-state. A denial of the legitimacy, perhaps even the very existence of Jewish nationalism is hidden behind it. Explicitly it is argued that the concept of 'a Jewish and democratic state' is self contradictory. Implicitly the right of the Jews for a nation state of their own is denied.

Criticism of certain Israeli policies, its treatment of the Palestinians in particular, is prevalent towards questions about the morality of having closer relations with a vast non-citizen Diaspora than with the Arab minority inside Israel. Using human rights values and post-colonial theories some critics of Israel argue that the very idea of a Jewish state is anachronistic, rooted in another time and place, as noted historian Tony Judt ("Israel: the Alternative", New York Review of Books, 23.10.2003). Some of these and related criticisms find their place in the heart and mind of many conscientious people, especially among liberals in Western countries. In intellectual circles questions about the very right of a Jewish nation state to exist and its prospects to survive are being made.

Hebrew University history professor Alexander Yakobson and renowned constitutional law professor Amnon Rubinstein, former minister of education and recipient of the Israel Prize in law, contribute a systematic, academic perspective to the discussion. The two met during joint political activity in the left-wing Meretz Party, both of whom support the two-state solution.

Their book does not defend Israeli policies in the territories occupied in 1967; rather, a partition of the country between its two peoples is a logical political conclusion 'a Jewish nation-state in part of the country alongside a Palestinian nation-state' (11). They analyze the UN deliberations resulting in the resolution passed on 29 November 1947, regarding the establishment in Mandatory Palestine of an Arab state and a Jewish state. Partition resulted from the recognition that 'the tragedy of Palestine', as the Swedish ambassador formulated it, 'lay in the fact that the claims of both sides were legitimate, which made it necessary to reach a compromise' (58). The vast majority of the Zionist movement was ready to accept a compromise, while the Arab side continues to deny the legitimacy of the Jewish claims, 'The UN Partition Plan was doomed to failure by the Arab-Palestinian leadership and the countries of the Arab League, who rejected it and went to war' (59). It is not merely an adoption of the Israeli narrative of its War of Independence, rather it is a historical conclusion based on the political facts which preceded the outbreak of hostilities. They continue with a brief description of the ensuing events, including the Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip and the Jordan's occupation and annexation of the West Bank, which ended during the 1967 Six Day War.

The authors claim that the military victory and the conquest of the historical Land of Israel awakened 'a territorial appetite' and 'too many ignored the dangers and moral problems' involved in the occupation rule over another people (63). As of now the ideological debate regarding the principle of partition is over after PM Netanyahu's Bar-Ilan statement that accepted the two-state solution, following in the steps of his predecessors Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. The book was written during Sharon's tenure in office (a Hebrew version was published in 2003) and does not analyze the significance of Netanyahu's statement—a typical misfortune inherent in current affairs literature that can never be up to date. Furthermore, with their interest invested in ideology the authors avoid the necessary comparison of the ideological change to policy predicaments and political stalemate.

Ideologically, as the Centre and moderate Right in Israel accepted the principle of partition, certain circles of the Left, both in Israel and abroad, have in the meantime started to...