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Sari Nusseibeh and Palestinian Moderation

Oct 8, 2011

 

[Editor’s note: This article by elliot Abrams attracted my attention becasue many years ago when I was active in Canadian Friends of Peace Now  I met Sari Nusseibah at a peace conference in Ottawa. Abrams is correct that Nusseibah is considered a leading Palestinian moderate by many, and yet as this article reveals , he is far from being willing to  recognizing Israel as a Jewish state as indicated in his most recent piece publsihed in Al Jazeera]

 

Israel’s difficulties in making peace with the Palestinians are nicely revealed in an opinion piece by Sari Nusseibeh published by Al Jazeera English last week . Nusseibeh is often viewed as the most moderate of all Palestinian moderates.

Typically, in the New York Times,Leon Wieselier called him “a deeply admirable man” and wrote of his “liberal nationalism” and his “humane understanding.” He is president of Al Quds University, holds a Ph.D. from Harvard, and has long been viewed as a leading peace activist.

 
So Nusseibeh’s new article “Why Israel can’t be a ‘Jewish State’” is worth a look. Here are some of the key points:
 
In 1946, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry concluded that the demand for a “Jewish State” was not part of the obligations of the Balfour Declaration or the British Mandate. Even in the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, when Zionists sought to “establish a home for the Jewish people”, there was no reference of a “Jewish State”.
 

Here Nusseibeh simply omits UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1948, which called for the partition of Palestine into “Jewish and Arab states.” It is not a small matter to overlook. Looking back to 1897 and 1946 and ignoring Resolution 181 is, at the very least, a bit odd.

To read more click here  http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2011/10/05/sari-nusseibeh-and-palestinian-moderation/