There are few discussions that are currently ongoing inside Israel in regard to Benjamin Netanyahu's demand for the Palestinians to recognize “the Jewish character of the state” as a condition to secure progress at the level of the peace talks. The majority of the domestic debates are related to the status and influence of the religious powers over social life, the ties linking the different groups to each other and to the state institutions, and the roles and rights of the various religious and ethnic minorities. Although this matter is important and is connected to the demographic changes affecting the different Jewish sects and the escalation of the tension in the relations between the Jews and the Palestinians of the 1948 territories, it reveals the existence of deep division between the Jews in Israel over the identity of their state. As a reminder in this context, the following question: “Should Israel be a Jewish state or the state of the Jews?” which marked the dispute that emerged between two movements, a “secular” one and a “religious” one inside the Zionist movement prior to the establishment of Israel, has been a central question since the “Balfour Declaration” in 1917 and has not yet been settled. This is due to the fact that the religious content of a state which should convey a national project, is something which did not go by unnoticed in the history of the Zionist movement, while the Israeli political spectrum (the adopter of the Zionist ideology with its multiple secular and religious formulas) still carries the echo of this question and the different answers to it until this very day. However, Israel does not seem to be concerned about the conditions put forth by its prime minister around the negotiations table, as though the issue of the Jewish character of the state were pulled out from circulation, or rather earned the necessary consensus to become one of the constant principles of the Israeli negotiator. In reality, the Israeli audience's shift toward right-wing extremism with its national and religious versions and the retreat on the other side of the Labor Party or “Meretz,” did not leave any room for a serious discussion over the importance of the recognition by the Palestinians among other Arabs of the “Jewish character of the state.” It thus seemed that this point had become a redundancy which was overcome, while some detractors among the Palestinians and the Arabs are still refusing to recognize reality. From the Arab viewpoint, apart from the serious threat carried by any Palestinian response to Netanyahu's aforementioned demand whether at the level of the Palestinian national rights – namely the right of return since no refugee would be allowed to return to the state of another people – or at the level of the Palestinians of the 1948 territories who will endure further segregation, exclusion and marginalization in the event of such a recognition, the Arabs would face a direct threat if any of them were to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or a state for the Jews. It would be inconsequential to consider the Arab or Iranian Islamic claims expressing hostility toward the Jews as a race and a religion, let alone the abomination of European or traditional Christian anti-Semitism, seeing how this discourse reflects the crisis of those promoting these ideas and the backwardness of their vision of the world, rather than proposes cures for the current problems. What interests us at this level is how this Israel demand is constituting a cradle for similar claims in the Arab world. Indeed, as sectarian, denominational and ethnic sensitivities are increasing in many Arab states, any response to the request to recognize the Jewish character of Israel would mark a participation in the hanging of the suicide gallows. Therefore, as much as the Arabs are requested to protect the Palestinian national rights, they are equally requested to pay attention to the dangers forming before them. What is happening in Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon and Yemen and what has started to surface in some Gulf states (such as Kuwait and Bahrain for example), converges with Netanyahu's demands and goes in line with his inclinations. So how to escape before reaching the abyss?
