What Jewish state?

US President George W Bush's reference to Israel as the "Jewish State" last week in Aqaba raised many eyebrows in the Arab world.

Presumably the president is aware of the existence of some one million Arab-Israelis. And did the characterisation intend to negate, as it appears implicitly to do, the right of four million Palestinian refugees to return to homes from which they were forcibly expelled?

The US president was in the Middle East to indicate, among other things, that he and his administration are fully committed to facilitating a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Ignoring the existence of one million people, and peremptorily dismissing the rights of another four millions which are, furthermore, recognised by international law and supposedly still subject to negotiation during final status talks between Palestinians and Israelis, is hardly a strategy that will further such an aim.

Some are arguing for a charitable interpretation of the US president's reference, claiming that the intention was only to suggest that Israel is predominantly Jewish. It is not, they say, intended to exclude the rights of Arab Israelis or Palestinian refugees. The statement was made, after all, by the same US president who once referred to the Greeks as Greecians.

The US president's real intentions, of course, will emerge with the positions his administration adopts in the not-too-distant future. Bush's proposed settlement for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is based on establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and not the "Jewish state", by the year 2005. It would be an insurmountable impediment to this vision if it includes plans to remove Arab-Israelis to the would-be Palestinian state, or denies the right of return of the four million Palestinian refugees.