The emerging Palestinian position, in preparation for the Annapolis “meeting” (the low-key language is now being used deliberately, so as to reduce expectations), on the question of Israel as a Jewish state, is fast becoming the central point of contention. In many ways, it is the fundamental underlying question that drives all other “core” issues: Jerusalem, borders, refugees, the settlements. It brings into focus the yawning gap in historical comprehension and self-definition between the two sides, even among people of goodwill who have worked for many years in close personal proximity to one another. The head of the Palestinian negotiating team, Saeb Erekat, rejected the call for such recognition, since “states should not be defined by religion,” thus providing proof that the formal position once included in the Palestinian National Covenant, which rejected Jewish “peoplehood” and bluntly defined Judaism strictly as “one of the revealed religions,” is still with us—even if the covenant itself was declared, in Yasir Arafat’s idiosyncratic French, “caduc” (“over and done with”).

Sadly, this basic difference has come into the open at a time when other regional realities are relatively reassuring and could have provided a promising framework of strategic support for the summit. Within one day alone, two significant and symbolic occasions offered a glimpse into a different future:

• In Ankara, the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, side by side with PA president Mahmoud Abbas, addressed the Turkish Parliament. Both offered visions of peace: Peres suggested that Turkey might play a role in achieving a Gaza ceasefire, and Abbas, in anger, denounced Hamas for the massacre of Fatah supporters at a rally the day before and stressed the common stand of all moderate forces in the region against the forces of radicalism and extremism.
• In Brussels, the chief of staff of the IDF, Lt.-General Gabi Ashkenazi (rarely a man of words, even in Israel) addressed a gathering of NATO top commanders. He discussed the Lebanon War and its outcome, as well as the intensive training program the IDF is now undertaking, and offered NATO a share of Israel’s expertise in the war on terror. His fellow generals from Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco welcomed him warmly; his Turkish counterpart rushed to hug him, and again, the new strategic landscape of the Middle East was there for all to see (if they cared to do so).

All this was even more remarkable, given that two months ago tensions had soared between Israel and Syria, and Turkey felt deeply aggrieved when it turned out that the Israeli Air Force apparently had used Turkish airspace. No permanent damage was done to the relationship, however. Thus, the Ankara and Brussels events not only signaled an acceptance of Israel as a strategic fact (and factor), but also demonstrated the effective isolation of the Syrian regime—whose murderous policies in Lebanon continue to alienate much of the Arab world, let alone Europe and the U.S. The conduct of the Syrians, and above all, that of Iran, are all the more reason for the moderate camp in the region to close ranks and take measures to enhance their mutual cooperation.

Sounds logical—until identity politics come into the equation. From an Israeli point of view, the demand for recognition as a Jewish state is not a fine point of protocol. It is an important guarantee against Palestinian policies of demographic inundation, and a basic test of the change in attitudes and modification of “narratives” (on both sides). But for the very same reasons, it is viewed by the Palestinian leadership as a decisive departure from the basic positions that define their own place in the world, as they see it—namely, as the victims of an alien and illegitimate invasion into a land that they consider to have been theirs alone. Israel may be a fact, too difficult and dangerous to dislodge at this time; but recognizing the legitimacy of Zionism as a national movement, and the nature of Israel as a Jewish nation-state, is to them a breach of their very identity.

In Ankara, Peres spoke of the need to see Palestine, the national home of the Palestinian people, emerge and prosper, rising from the rubble of conflict—side by side with Israel, the national home of the Jewish people. Not too long ago such language was confined to the fringes of Israeli politics, but today, a “two-state solution” is backed, in different versions and territorial configurations, by the broad majority of Israelis, and all but one party bloc in the Knesset. Abbas, however, did not and could not respond in kind; he did speak of Palestine alongside Israel, but not of the latter’s Jewish nature. Even the formulation of words that went around the term “Jewish state”—which is more difficult for Israeli Arabs to swallow, and can be read as exclusionary—did not solve the problem, which now casts a shadow on the very essence of the conference. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert left open the prospect of important concessions, but not on Israel’s Jewish identity—and so the room for elegant diplomatic doublespeak has greatly narrowed.

Will this basic question—“yes, a two-state solution; but what states?”—trump the new regional strategic alliances and sow dissention in Annapolis and beyond? Ideological and political imperatives may bring such a troubling outcome, with all that it might entail. The dire warnings—by Abbas himself, and by many others, including the U.S. State Department—as to the consequences of failure only serve to make the Palestinian position more adamant, in the expectation that Israel will blink first. But in the crucible of the meeting itself, backed by a firm American position of “Israel as a vibrant Jewish state” (as President George W. Bush put it in Aqaba) and by the need of other regional participants to emerge with a mutually acceptable document, it may, in fact, be the Israeli side that will have its way—paved, perhaps, by gestures and initiatives on practical matters such as settlement expansion, the release of prisoners, and economic cooperation. This, in all likelihood, is Olmert’s expectation. If it is not met, it would be pointless to proceed with further painful concessions so long as the basic paradigm of mutual respect for the national identity of each side is shunned by Israel’s interlocutors.