Passports to progress (Daniel Barenboim)

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At the same time, the citizens of Israel have just as much cause to be alert to the needs and rights of the Palestinian people (both within and outside Israel) as they have to their own. After all, in the sense that we share one land and one destiny, we should all have dual citizenship.

It seems amazing to me, naive foreigner perhaps, that an Israeli should choose to accept Palestininan citizenship. It's exciting to me. It's wonderful. That said, I think I have to agree with Sam Bahour in his intro to Barenboim's text: how can Israel ever be democratic as a 'jewish' state? How can a 'jewish' state 'integrate' a palestinian (ie. non-jewish) minority? How can any state which is defined along religious lines ever be democratic? I sincerely Barenboim hope is not giving in to the easy retoric of 'jewish' as a nationality and not as a religion. That will only be true when anyone can, even theoretically, become jewish, regardless of who their mother is, and without having to go through conversion, just as anyone can, in theory, become american, british or french. Never, basically.