Palestinians will not cross their 'red line'

[Scootaloo]

1. Good ol' Israel Hayom

(If you didn't notice David, Heritage Florida is reprinting this article from that tabloid - it's up there next to Efraim Inbar's name at the header)

Abbas rejected Kerry's security plan because... well, let's be frank, it's a fucking asinine plan that would turn the West Bank into "Gaza East," with its new wall at the Jordan border, Israeli military forces maintaining an occupation in the west bank, Israel claiming control of the Jordan Valley, and freedom for Israel to use drones as it sees fit in the West Bank.

"Recognition" of Israel as a Jewish state is among the points refused - and it always has been, and always for the same reasons

1) According to PM Salem Fayyad, "It's not up to Palestinians to determine the character of Israel." And that's a good point - Why does Israel demand this from the Palestinians? Does it need the PA's seal of approval on the issue or something? It lacks such a seal, but it certainly hasn't stopped Israel from calling itself "The Jewish State," so what's the point?

2) More substantively, there's concern that such a formal recognition that Israel is a specifically ethnic-religious state would hinder or harm the rights of people who do not belong to that group - and there's good reason for such a concern, especially on the part of Arabs, who even now find themselves on the wrong end of numerous discriminatory laws and certainly no shortage of extralegal and cultural biases against them.

3) Which brings us to the fact that Israel isn't a Jewish state. It's a state with a Jewish majority, yes, and that gives it a distinctly Jewish character of course. But two-fifths of the people who make up the state of Israel are not Jews whether by religion or by ethnicity. That is, Israel is a "Jewish state" only in the same way that the United States is a "white, christian state." Just as such a formal declaration by the United States would naturally carry a delegitmization of non-white, non-christian Americans, so too would such a formal recognition for the part of Israel do to non-Jews within its borders.

...Which once again going by Kerry's "plan" would seem to include everything between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Coast. Seriously, this guy... I like Kerry generally, but he's really looking like he's probably the second-to-last person who should be bumbling around the Middle east in an official capacity.