Forget it. It’s not going to happen.
by David Solway, PAJAMAS MEDIA
The Middle East “peace process,” as in Macbeth’s great soliloquy, “creeps on this petty pace from day to day,” depleting its innumerable tomorrows and leading to nothing but misery and despair. It has only “lighted fools/The way to dusty death” and to failure after failure, being quite definitely “a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.” Of course, the bitter and mephitic Scots laird is speaking of the futility of life while we, on the other hand, are considering the total senselessness of a quixotic and fugitive political enterprise that is heading nowhere except endless stalemate or renewed conflict.
Surely, it has become obvious by this time, after sixty-plus years of tractionless discussions and bloody confrontations, that the current negotiating paradigm of Israeli concessions for Palestinian recalcitrance, that is, land for no peace and a raft of further demands, is simply not working, nor is it going to work. Why the Israeli leadership ever embarked on so fruitless a project is beyond rational explanation. In matters of life and death, unanchored hope is no substitute for hard-headed assaying and a grounding in history. For peace to have even an unhouseled ghost of a chance, several correlative concessions on the part of the Palestinians would be absolutely mandatory. For example:
* The Palestinians would have to agree that a Palestinian state would be no more Judenrein than Israel would be, let’s say, Muslimrein; there are one and half million Arabs resident in Israel, most of whom will not surrender their Israeli citizenship. Why then should 300,000 Jews living in Judea and Samaria be evicted from their homes?
* The Palestinians would have to realize that their insistence on the “right of return” to Israel of seven million so-called “refugees” is a complete nonstarter, and must be dropped from their negotiating position. Israel is not about to commit demographic suicide.
* They will be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
* They will have to accept Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Ramallah as the capital of Palestine.
* They will need to be reminded that the “green line” is not an officially ratified international border but merely a temporary armistice line, allowing for adjustments that ensure Israel’s retention of strategic depth. For the Palestinian Authority to assume that its proposed or unilaterally declared state would abut the pre-1967 borders is a violation of UN Resolution 242. Moreover, Clause 5(2) of the Rhodes Armistice Agreement of 1949 stipulates that “In no sense are the ceasefire lines to be interpreted as political or territorial borders” and that they do not affect “the final disposition of the Palestine question.”
* They will consent to cease promulgating anti-Jewish hatred in media and mosque and to erase anti-Israeli incitement from textbook and classroom.
* Given Israel’s meager territorial scale and the volatility and inherent violence in the region, especially the aggressive meddling of Iran in local affairs, the smuggling of rockets and other armaments threatening Israel, and the inroads made by al-Qaeda and its offshoots, the Palestinian Authority will be compelled to permit a defensive Israeli presence in the adjacent hill country.
The likelihood of the Palestinian Authority agreeing to even one of these conditions is virtually nil. But in order for a viable peace to take root, all of these conditions would need to be implemented. Further, none of the desiderata I have listed resolves the dilemma of a Hamas terrorist government solidly entrenched in the Gaza Strip and committed to the destruction of Israel. Neither do these terms take into account a bellicose Hezbollah, equipped with 40,000 Iranian and Syrian supplied rockets, camped on Israel’s northern border. The creation of a Palestinian state would do nothing to defuse the tensions in the area and would conceivably only serve to exacerbate them. For even should the above provisions be settled upon, there is no guarantee that the new Palestine would not join the Islamic axis. Ultimately, as Jonathan Spyer cogently argues in The Transforming Fire, the conflict is not really about borders per se. It is simply one aspect of a world-historical clash between a Hydra-headed Islamic collective and a half-dormant Western world, with Israel in the immediate firing line.
Whither, then, peace? A realistic assessment of the situation would indicate that peace, a harmonious resolution of competing agendas, will always recede the closer we seem to be approaching it via road maps, Quartets, direct or indirect negotiations, interim agreements, or any of the diplomatic sedatives currently on offer. According to recent polls, the bottom-up approach adopted by the Israeli government, stoking the Palestinian economy and building its productive base, has not materially altered the fierce anti-Israeli consensus among the populace. As Jonathan Rosenblum writes, “There can be no peace at present — and perhaps ever — because the Palestinians have pursued not a two-state solution, but a two-stage solution, of which the second stage is inevitably the establishment of a unitary Palestinian rule from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. Even those Palestinians who profess to support a two-state solution, make clear to pollsters that they do not see it as a final solution, but merely as a stage to a takeover of the Jewish state, which they will never, in any event, recognize as such.”
Peace in the Middle East is, in any sober analysis, probably and at the very least generations away from accomplishment. Peace may emerge after another thirty or fifty years of grinding exhaustion or a major outbreak of hostilities that leaves the belligerents incapable of pursuing so debilitating a struggle. And this is a best case scenario.
But there is another possibility, which is to give up entirely on a “peace process” that, thanks to Palestinian intransigence and Islamic Jew-hatred, is doomed to bankruptcy. An unsentimental view of life would conclude that there are some problems in this world for which there are no good solutions, only modes of containment. Iran is a problem with a solution; Israel/Palestine is not. The modus operandi in the Holy Land, such as it is, involves accepting the necessity of an armed truce, punctuated by occasional pre-emptive strikes and local flare-ups, on the model of managing an incurable disease. For if a disease is incurable, it is utter folly to imagine that it can be made to disappear courtesy of some miraculous cure. And the Middle East disease is, frankly, incurable.
As I wrote in The Big Lie, what I am suggesting is, after all, not something that we regard as unacceptable or morally objectionable in everyday life. We understand that it would be perilous to succumb to unfounded aspirations and pious notions by dismissing facts and embracing unrealistic choices. If we discover that we are suffering from diabetes, there is no point in believing that the disease can be made to reconsider. Rather, we must rely on daily treatment, however irksome it may be.
Put simply, we often have to do what we would prefer not having to do. In private life, such constraints may be financial or medical, but the ultimate purpose is survival — just as it is in the realm of national existence, even if this means having to stay on a permanent war footing. If you have to take insulin, then you have to take insulin, or die. If you have to pay down a mortgage, then you have to pay down a mortgage, or lose your house. And if you are dealing with an enemy that has a 1400 year history of conquest and spoliation, and which is committed to your annihilation, then you must remain in a state of perennial military readiness and be prepared to defend yourself in perpetuity. Clearly, this is not a pleasant option but, unfortunately, there is no other feasible alternative. What is true for people is also true for a people. I, for one, cannot see the value in pretending otherwise.
Israel cannot afford to capitulate, not only to its self-declared enemies but to its own passionate yearning for peace. Falling backwards over the possibility of peace is a bungled negotiating paradigm, as Oslo made painfully clear. Any Israeli politician still hooked on Oslo represents a threat to his country. The same applies to the Israeli left — Kadima, Labor, Meretz, Haaretz, the peace constituencies, a treasonable professoriate and many NGOs — who are essentially a pack of useful jewdiots, victims-in-waiting of their own self-immolating policies.
Similarly, any Western diplomat addicted to untenable proposals and implausible assumptions about the achievement of a stable and long-lasting peace in the Middle East represents a threat to Israel as well, and, indeed, to the entire region. When EU foreign policy chief and resident gargoyle Catherine Ashton asserts that there is “no alternative to a negotiated deal,” she displays only ignorance and bad faith, weeds which spring from the mounting dung heap of EU policy-making and British anti-Semitism. Ashton is not referring specifically to Mahmoud Abbas’ threat to declare statehood unilaterally, which would make a modicum of sense if she were. Like her blinkered counterparts — Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, Dennis Ross, Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and others — she is insisting on a wider program that envisages what is both counter-productive and impossible.
In the international theater, it is fair to assume that the United States will never form a friendly alliance with Russia or China but must stay alert and maintain a credible deterrent capability, regardless of commercial exchanges and temporary reciprocities. On the level of the individual, as I have argued, one does not resist the need for medication or medical procedures if one desires to prolong one’s life. It is no different in the Middle East, in particular with respect to the survival of the Jewish state.
Is peace possible in the Middle East? Will Israel manage to arrive at an entente cordiale with its implacable Muslim enemies, whether on its own initiative or with the coercive “assistance” of the West? The answer is no. Or not in the foreseeable future. Militant Islam is not about to go away anytime soon, and neither is Palestinian faux-irredentism, anti-Semitism, or anti-Zionism. “Radical Islam,” writes British historian Andrew Roberts, “is never going to accept the concept of an Israeli state, so the struggle is likely to continue for another sixty years.”
Israel does not have the luxury of losing a war, any more than it does of achieving a false peace. It is not — or no longer — in a position to rely on a slip-now grip-later political system, but needs to react with strength, intelligence, and dispatch. It cannot accede to the Olmertian velleity of being “tired of winning.” It cannot trust the security guarantees of its ostensible Western allies or the United Nations, which are not worth the paper they’re scribbled on. It must, to quote Melanie Phillips, “stop conniving with the premise of their enemies that the Middle East impasse would be solved by establishing a state of Palestine to which the settlements — and thus by extension Israel — are the obstacle.” This is a false narrative that needs to be decisively countered. Israel must also parry the subtle blandishments of the “normalcy tilt,” that is, once memories of terrorist atrocities begin to fade, that life will continue in the cafés and on the beaches of Tel Aviv as per usual. For Israel, with its precarious foothold at the very epicenter of the Dar al-Harb, or Islamic House of War, is not a “normal nation” nor will it ever be.
It is the destiny of the Jewish nation to be constantly in danger of sedition from within and aggression from without. Apart from incendiary violence, it must confront a world-wide disinformation campaign pivoting on what David Harris calls the two “maladies,” namely, the “confirmation bias” (valorizing information unfavorable to Israel, irrespective of its untruth) and “reverse causality” (switching cause and effect, so that Israel is made responsible for the actions of its enemies). Such meretricious impulses or tropisms appeal to both anti-Semites and anti-Zionists and have become the common property of both Jew and Gentile, some Israelis and many non-Israelis, alike.
It is an open question who is more contemptible, the Jew who lights the fire under the cauldron or the cannibal who throws him into it — all, of course, under the sign of “peace,” which is only a synonym for eventual eclipse. It needs to be candidly said. The enemy is threefold: an Islamic aggressor who will not relent, of whom the Palestinians are the advance column; the reptilian Jew who contrives against his own people; and their Western enablers, primarily in Europe and the current American administration. For each of these, peace is only subversion by another name and war by other means.
Israel’s survival, however, is indeed possible, even if peace is not. But it should begin to act in certain demonstrable ways. It must demobilize its homegrown Quislings and intellectual vandals, with argument, reason or, if need be, the application of legal force where appropriate. There is no excuse for hostile NGOs spreading harmful propaganda on the European dime. There is no justification for state-supported leftist professors brazenly undermining the very country that pays their salaries. It serves no purpose to cosset Muslim groups and firebrands who seek to bring down the state, or to turn the other cheek when rockets fall on its civilian communities. In addition, Israel must take control of the explanatory narrative, or, in a current slang expression, “change the diskette.” And the debacle of military unpreparedness and poor leadership, as during the 2006 Lebanon War, must be avoided at all costs.
Forget peace. It’s not going to happen. And it is not a risk worth taking since unchecked sentimentality is the most ruthless of serial killers. Camp David is the inevitable precursor of the Intifada. The situation is admittedly distressing but it is by no means unrelievedly desolate. For Israel will prevail if it succeeds in preserving a reasonable degree of internal unity, and remains confident, steadfast, realistic, and, above all, vigilant.
Matt:
A final note for you. While I don’t rule out a major war this year, there are many reasons why this may not happen.
First, consider that one of the revelations of Wikileaks was that Syria told Iran that in the event of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuke facilities, Syria would NOT attack Israel. They don’t want their butts kicked.
Consider also the role of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah’s main purpose in Lebanon is to act as Iran’s nuclear tripwire. If and when the mullahcracy in Iran gets a small deliverable arsenal of nukes, that is when they will direct Hezbollah to attack Israel so as to provoke an invasion of Lebanon, giving Iran the “excuse” they feel they need to nuke Israel. Some may wonder why they need the “excuse”…well, who knows what is in their minds. But, one may recall that even Hitler found it necessary, on the eve of his invasion of Poland, to dress up a few hundred concentration camp inmates in Polish army uniforms, shoot them, distribute them around the German-Polish border, photograph them, and use this “evidence” of “Polish aggression against Germany” to justify their attack. If Hitler needed a pretext, I’m sure the Iranian leaders feel they will as well.
After all, what other purpose does – could – Hezbollah serve?
They have no mechanized divisions that can seize territory. They have no real air power, no naval forces. Other than a handful of anti-tank missiles, they have no weapons that can significantly attrit Israeli military formations. All they can do is wreak havoc with Israeli civilian/economic life; in other words, PROVOKE ISRAEL.
Does Iran utilize Lebanon as a port for carrying out trade? No, they don’t need this. Do they need Lebanon as a strategic launching pad for regional dominance? Iran has made no attempt yet to base major weapons there (e.g., long-range attack aircraft). No, they are only “strategic” insofar as they sit on Israel’s northern border, and again, the force they have constructed there in the form of Hezbollah has no ability to seize territory. Does Lebanon contain some kind of resource that Iran needs? Again, no.
Yet, since the early 1980s, the Iranian Islamist regime has expended great effort at creating and sustaining their Hezbollah puppet. Also, one can trace the beginnings of their efforts to develop nuclear weapons from this very same timeframe. I submit that this is no coincidence.
This was not something that could be accomplished in a short time frame; they are patient. Why shouldn’t they be? The Persians have been around as such for a very long time.
Though they don’t talk about it, I have little doubt that the IDF leadership is very much aware of this “nuclear tripwire” role for Hezbollah. Indeed, I would posit that Israeli leaders, with this in mind, very deliberately used the events that touched off the 2006 war as a pretext for their intended aim to eliminate this element of Iran’s “grand strategy” as described above. They’ll try again as soon as the opportunity presents itself, but they are leery of doing so now, since there is no way they get resupply during this war today, with Obama in office, as they did from Bush 43 in ’06. So, Israel sure doesn’t want this war for the time being.
And, Iran doesn’t have their nukes yet. Stuxnet and a few other operations seem to have delayed this effort for the time being, at least past 2011. Iran does NOT want their “tripwire” disabled before they get their nukes, and they are loathe to give Israel an excuse to do this.
Sure, the situation is tense and unstable. Israel’s level of support in the UN is as low as it has ever been, for whatever that may garner the bad guys in the way of sanctions/condemnation against Israel during a crisis. I am also quite certain that there are plenty of local players in Gaza, South Lebanon, and the Palestinian portions of J&S who think that now is the time to strike Israel and provoke a big war, since she is at least partially “decoupled” from her primary ally, the U.S. They aren’t going to have another U.S. president in office who is less likely to support Israel (unless Ron Paul replaces Obama, as he is, in this obervers view, Saudia’s “Republican insurance policy” against Obama; WATCH HIM), Israel hasn’t yet established a major power strategic partner who can take the place of the U.S., and Obama could well be gone in two years. Thus, some leaders in the enemy camp may say that they need to hit Israel while the political situation in this regard favors them.
Like I said, I don’t rule out a big war in 2011, but I wouldn’t count on it, either. I am skeptical of anyone who makes firm predictions either way. Too much going on.
I’m not going to make predictions. Too many variables either way.
Good article overall, though.
The key thing to bear in mind is, as pointed out in the quote of Jonathan Spyer above, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is but one front of a larger war, roughly comparable to the role played by West Berlin vis-a-vis the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War. The logic of the Islamist appeaser crowd – of which Obama is the most prominent current member – would also have said back in the 1970s that we could end the Cold War simply by handing West Berlin over to the Soviets.
So, there can only be peace for Israel when this larger war ends.
It will end when we in the West – to include Israel – stop enabling the Islamists by even appearing to humor their narrative. We need to confront them directly. The recognition issue is a case in point that Netanyahu has tried to stress, but the corrupt elites and media elsewhere refuse to even report or comment on. The most elemental common sense dictates that if one party to a conflict explicitly refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the other’s very existence, there can be no peace. Recognition is not a sufficient condition for peace – I’m sure Nazi Germany happily recognized Poland’s right to independent Polish nationhood right up until September 1st 1939 – but it is the most fundamental, necessary condition for peace.
This issue, recognition, can be leveraged by Israel and her supporters to help turn the tenor of the debate around, and reveal Israel’s enemies for the bloody-minded, medieval barbarians that they are. From there, perhaps Israel can be rightly perceived by Western publics generally as the front-line ally she really is in the larger war against Islamism. From there, the resolve might be found to genuinely support Israel in this context, and to confront the terrorist-supporting Islamic world in general.
Some here may say I’m dreaming in the above paragraph, but it is not so far-fetched. Witness the phenomenon of Geert Wilders; who had heard of him even five years ago? I also understand that there is some rising German politico who has been described as the “German Geert Wilders”. Look at the rise of the English Defense League. Many important and rising figures in the Republican Party here in the U.S. – e.g., Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Allen West – would have no trouble at all agreeing with my proscriptions above.
I am under no illusions that confronting Islamism will be easy or bloodless. It could well be the costliest enterprise we’ve embarked on since WW2, depending on many variables. But it likely won’t be nearly as bad as WW2 itself was. None of the Islamist countries, besides Pakistan, has nuclear arms, at least not yet. What even they have is a small arsenal of limited reach. None of them sit at the helm of an advanced industrial society that can compete with us in the manner of Nazi Germany/Imperial Japan leading up to WW2, or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. They are largely underdeveloped, tribal, peasant societies whose major strength lay with their willingness to die in droves in order to kill/terrorize only a few of us. If we were serious, they could never stand up to us.
But their petrodollar PR/corruption campaign is very effective and obscures these obvious truths from most publics. Many other members of the public are blinded by anti-Semitism (what if West Berlin were populated entirely by Jews during the Cold War…wonder if we’d have handed it over to the Russians then, blaming the Jews of West Berlin for the tensions of the day…hmmmm).
So, we have to overcome the propaganda. We have to win on the one battlefield where Israel is having her head handed to her, the media/PR battlefield. If we start winning there, down the road, there may be peace (I think this is at least plausible within 30 years). If we keep letting the Islamists manipulate us with their petrodollar-funded bullshit, this war goes on forever and ever.
Mark Bernadiner. BULLSHIT. Nice suggestion for Arabs to take advantage of Israelis. lol . As if Israelis would allow more Arabs than Jews in the Jewish homeland. Not going to happen.
Not only is peace possible, but it will probably happen in 2011. Why?
If you have been paying attention, then you will notice that a massive regional war is approaching in the Middle East. Israel enemies (Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria) have thousands of missiles that can hit every part of Israel. They have missiles with chemical warheads. And they are controlled by Iran who wants to finish off Israel once and for all. Israel might actually lose its first war.
What happened the last time it looked like Israel might lose its first war? The Israeli military prepared to launch nuclear weapons. That’s right. Israel was going to obliterate its enemies with nuclear weapons, but suddenly the war turned around.
Imagine the Nazi gas chambers with millions of Jews be killed. Now imagine chemical weapons exploding over Jewish cities. There can be only one response to chemical weapons exploding over Jewish cities – nuclear.
Why is peace going to happen in 2011? Because Israel is going to use nuclear weapons to obliterate its neighbors.
Here are just some of the related articles about the approaching war in the Middle East:
2010-12-31 | ‘Israel can’t last long in regional wars’
2010-12-28 | Tehran the spark to Mid-East tinderbox | The Australian
2010-12-06 | Israel Must Prepare for Nuclear War | US News and World Report
2010-11-05 | The Coming War Would be the Most Difficult Israel Ever Faced
2010-08-13 | Iran Warns of Middle East Regional War
2010-08-04 | The Israeli-Hezbollah War is Inevitable – International Analyst Network
2010-08-03 | Is the Middle East on the Brink of a Catastrophic War? | Time
2010-08-02 | Calm on Israel-Lebanon front belied by talk of war
2010-08-01 | Syria warns of another war in Mideast
2010-05-22 | Israel prepares for next threat — nuclear?
2010-05-20 | Former US General Warns of Chemical Attacks Against Israel
Total extermination of palestinian thugs, dismentling UN and arresting UN officials will safe Israel and create peace not only on the ME, but around the world.
By the way, when NATO sends its troops, Russia will also insist on sending its troops as part of the Quartet. Therefore everyone from Ezekiel 38 will be here.
This is all well and good, but the entire world will impose a PA State and a divided Jerusalem on Israel anyway. They could give a damn about Israel’s position on most of these issues. Witness State Dept.’s Crowley stuttering for a half an hour when he was asked to admit that Israel was a Jewish state. Whether it is this coming August or four years hence, international imposition and troops are coming en masse. Coming to terms with this and spiritual preparation for Gog and Magog are the answers. In the meantime, watch for Divine retribution before and after the international arrival of imposition and troops. The US Congress can’t stop this either, because no Declaration of War is needed, and NATO troops will be sent so that Germany and Turkey will flip most of the bill.
There will be peace when the Arabs understand that they must become citizens Israel, and enjoy the benifits of such a life. They do not need to become Jews just enjoy the freedom and lifestyle given to them as Israelis
I agree with the above, and with Mer — and with Jabotinsky.
In response to the headline question. Possibly. After WW III is done.
Finally, some logic.
The fact that Western governments expect Israel to negotiate with the Arabs over any part of Israel is a travesty and a disgrace.
Text of the 1968 Palestinian Charter:
Article 1: Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.
Article 2: Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.
Article 3: The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.
Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.
Article 14: The destiny of the Arab nation, and indeed Arab existence itself, depend upon the destiny of the Palestine cause. From this interdependence springs the Arab nation’s pursuit of, and striving for, the liberation of Palestine. The people of Palestine play the role of the vanguard in the realization of this sacred (qawmi) goal.
Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation – peoples and governments – with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland.
Article 16: The liberation of Palestine, from a spiritual point of view, will provide the Holy Land with an atmosphere of safety and tranquility, which in turn will safeguard the country’s religious sanctuaries and guarantee freedom of worship and of visit to all, without discrimination of race, color, language, or religion. Accordingly, the people of Palestine look to all spiritual forces in the world for support.
Article 17: The liberation of Palestine, from a human point of view, will restore to the Palestinian individual his dignity, pride, and freedom. Accordingly the Palestinian Arab people look forward to the support of all those who believe in the dignity of man and his freedom in the world.
Article 18: The liberation of Palestine, from an international point of view, is a defensive action necessitated by the demands of self-defense. Accordingly the Palestinian people, desirous as they are of the friendship of all people, look to freedom-loving, and peace-loving states for support in order to restore their legitimate rights in Palestine, to re-establish peace and security in the country, and to enable its people to exercise national sovereignty and freedom.
Article 19: The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, particularly the right to self-determination.
Article 20: The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.