That's actually not a bad idea.

Jerusalem Post:

Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat appeared to soften his position Thursday but still rejected Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's call for explicit Palestinian recognition of Israel as "the Jewish state," saying he was baffled as to why Olmert wanted to "poke us in the eye" over the issue.

Asked by The Jerusalem Post whether he recognizes that the Jewish nation has historic rights here, Erekat said: "Israel has rights in the Middle East and the majority of Israelis are Jews. And when we recognized Israel, we recognized the composition of the state." Erekat had told an Arabic satellite TV interviewer earlier this week that the Palestinian Authority "will never acknowledge Israel's Jewish identity."

Erekat told the Post it was up to Israel to decide what to call itself, and that the Palestinians would recognize it accordingly. "Like the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said, "if you change your name to 'the Jewish state of Israel,' we'll call you that."

Comments

[Noga]

"if you change your name to 'the Jewish state of Israel,' we'll call you that."

I wonder if he is giving Olmert the wink/nudge in this comment. And I agree, that this is not such a bad idea. It would open up, of course, for an entire slew of Israel's ill-wishers the oppotunity to call Israel a Theocracy, pretending that Judaism is merely a religion. And it might strenghen the hand of the orthodox parties in Israel in imposing greater religious observance on a recalcitrant public.