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Nations United Against Israel

Blair ducks MK question about Jewish state


By Stan Goodenough
December 12, 2007

Israeli parliamentarians were reportedly furious Wednesday when former British Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to answer a question directed at him about PLO/PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas' recently reiterated refusal to recognize Israel as a JEWISH state.

While the PLO has consistently held to its refusal to acknowledge and agree to Israel being a Jewish state, it began to more blatantly and vociferously express this position in the week before last month's Annapolis conference.

And it has repeated its position since.

Blair, who is in Israel in his new role as special envoy on behalf of the so-called Quartet of world powers, was addressing the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee when one of its members, Likud MK Limor Livnat, questioned him on the issue.

"Members of the committee were furious when Blair did not answer,", reported the leftist daily, Ha'aretz.

The international community is widely understood to agree with the Arab point of view that there should be no Jewish state per se, but that the Jews who live in the Middle East should agree to being citizens of a one-man-one-vote state.

By contrast, the Jews who founded Israel believed, as does virtually the entire nation as it exists today, that a Jewish state is essential if they are to survive as a people in this almost universally anti-Jewish world.

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