Ari Shavit’s op-ed (“An admission of guilt”) at long last provides an answer to an important historical mystery: How was the ridiculous demand for recognition of the Jewish state born as a necessary condition for a peace agreement, and who was the creative gentleman who first articulated it?

The answer Shavit provided is doubly important: First of all, it partially cleanses Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni of the disgrace that hovered over her as the main suspect in the ownership of the rights to the manipulation for which there is no equal in the history of the State of Israel. Secondly, it describes precisely how this poisoned apple that was served up with Jewish and democratic cunning to the Palestinians, and was rejected by them, changed hands any number of times and in the end was eaten by the Israelis themselves.

Without an iota of shame, Shavit is proudly publishing the composition of the secret poison: “The peace agreement meant to end the conflict between the Jewish national movement and the Palestinian national movement,” he writes. What’s this – “the Jewish national movement”? Apparently Shavit means the State of Israel. As of September 1993, at the moment when Shavit, as he put it, “pored excitedly and enthusiastically” over the complete text of the Oslo agreement, the State of Israel had already been in existence for 45 years.

Moreover, the government of Israel has its very own signature on the agreement (opposite the signature of the Palestinian delegation, representing the Palestinian people). That is to say, the asymmetry Shavit identified in the agreement, the “black hole” that became his obsession – the demand for recognition of the Jewish people’s right to self-definition in a state of its own – expresses, in fact, the lack of symmetry that existed when the agreement was signed: between an existing and recognized state and a people lacking a state.

The State of Israel does not need recognition of its existence. This is because it exists. The demand for recognition is a manipulation, the aim of which is to create a false display of symmetry. Its aim is to camouflage the fact that the only people whose right to exist is really denied – day in and day out, every single hour of the day – is the Palestinian people.

Quite a phenomenal inversion: as though Israel’s right to exist is the subject, and not the denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-definition. There is no doubt about the existence of the State of Israel. To demand that “every Palestinian child in Deheisheh and Balata know that there’s a Jewish people that also has rights in this land” is sheer, unmitigated gall. That Palestinian child in Deheisheh or Balata doesn’t need Shavit’s reminder of the existence of the State of Israel. The demand that the child recognize it smells of sadism. It is, indeed, more reasonable to assume that it even stars in his nightmares.

“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict” argued Shavit, “is not a territorial dispute, but an existential identity conflict.” This is precisely the moment when Shavit tastes the poison he himself concocted for the Palestinians: Only someone who questions Israel’s right to exist can say that the conflict is not territorial. It is not out of the blue that Shavit concludes his op-ed with a desperate plea to the world not to raise its hand against the Balfour Declaration, the UN Partition Plan, the Declaration of Independence and the right of the State of Israel to exist. No less. Not only with respect to the Palestinian refugees but also with respect to territorial demands, Israel pushes back the Palestinians and the whole world.

Until now, the discussion has been about the 1967 borders – that is, the 1949 armistice lines – and not the Partition Plan borders. Only someone who refuses to “content himself” with the territorial nature of the conflict refuses to limit himself to the territories that were occupied in 1967 – a logic that is embodied in the simple formula of “territory for peace,” and no messing with each other’s narratives – can find himself whining, Don’t lay a hand on my Balfour.

It is not just out of the blue that official deniers of the State of Israel on its behalf – at the United Nations and in other diplomatic salons – point to the Bible (“But it says here that it’s ours!”) and summon God as a witness for the defense. To them, as to Shavit, must be said: Show a little national self-respect, guys.