Israel-Palestine: Netanyahu's Deal --- A Settlement Freeze in Exchange for a "Jewish State"
Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 10:31 | Ali Yenidunya in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
As Israel's Knesset reconvened after a three-month break, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered this proposal to the Palestinians: Israel is ready to extend the moratorium on settlement expansion in return for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state".
The Palestinian response was clear: "the issue of the Jewishness of the state has nothing to do with the matter."
And the Americans? From thousands of miles away, they could only give a general, somewhat tangled response: "U.S. policy has been consistent. Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton are committed to Israel’s democracy as a Jewish state," a State Department official told Haaretz.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, less than 72 hours after his Cabinet mandated a loyalty oath for non-Jews who want to be Israeli citizens, both plays to his domestic gallery and puts the onus back on the Palestinian Authority. The prime issue is no longer Jewish settlements; instead, it is this challenge: you want limits on our expansion in the West Bank, then you must declare, "We Accept Israel as a Jewish State."