"No State In The World Connects Its National Identity To A Religious Identity"? C'mon Saeb!

Dear Saeb, actually there are about 20 Muslim countries that connect their national identity to their religious identity--and about 16 non-Muslim countries that do so.

And by the way--Israel is not one of them.

From Myths and Facts:

MYTH #282

"No state in the world connects its national identity to a religious identity."

FACT

Just as the parties were preparing for peace talks in Annapolis, the Palestine Authority’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said the Palestinians would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state. This latest effort by a Palestinian official to delegitimize Israel was accompanied by Erekat’s startling statement that “no state in the world connects its national identity to a religious identity” (Haaretz, November 12, 2007).

Apparently Erekat has not read the draft constitution for the future state he envisions in Palestine or the PA’s Basic Law, which declare Islam the state religion of Palestine. He also conveniently overlooks the following nations that have established Islam as their state religion: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates.

Nations with predominantly Muslim populations are not the only ones to link their national and religious identity. These nations constitutionally recognize Christianity or Catholicism as their state religion: Argentina, Armenia, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Norway and the United Kingdom. Bhutan and Cambodia are officially Buddhist nations (2006 State Department Report on International Religious Freedom).

Israel has no official state religion. Freedom of worship is guaranteed to all. It is, however, the homeland of the Jewish people and was established and recognized internationally as a Jewish state by the United Nations in the partition resolution.

This article can be found at the Jewish Virtual Library.

See also Mitchell Bard's blog

Source: Myths & Facts Online -- A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Saeb Erekat and Mitchell Bard.