The president of Kosovo’s Jewish community, Votim Demiri, sitting between Bishop Dode Gjergji, left, of Kosovo’s Roman Catholic diocese, and Sheh Lulzim Shehu, a Sufi leader, at an interfaith conference in Prizren, May 23, 2014. (Ron Kampeas/JTA)
Israel is reluctant to recognize Kosovo for the same reason Spain, Romania, Indonesia and China, among others, are not on the list of 110: Each has reason to be wary of the precedent Kosovo set in 2008 by unilaterally separating from Serbia.
In Israel’s case, the fear is that recognition could undercut its diplomatic efforts to prevent the Palestinians from obtaining recognition in international forums, according to the writer and consultant Dahlia Scheindlin, who wrote her Tel Aviv University doctoral thesis on “unilaterally declared unrecognized states.”
“Of course Israel is not going to legitimize a unilaterally declared entity,” Scheindlin says.
Nor, she adds, is Israel interested in making an enemy out of Serbia.
Indeed, Jews have their own historical affinity for Serbs, whose partisans welcomed Jews into their ranks during World War II.
Some Kosovars believe that Avigdor Liberman, Israel’s foreign minister, spearheads opposition to recognition because he fears the possibility of Islamic extremists using the majority Muslim country as a foothold in Europe.
In 2010, a story circulated in Turkish and Israeli media that Liberman told his Macedonian counterpart he feared a jihadist outbreak among Muslim Albanians in the Balkans.
Sources were not cited in the story, and Liberman has said that Israel’s recognition of Kosovo will come when Serbia-Kosovo relations are normalized. He also has acknowledged that the precedent of unilaterally declared independence is a factor.
Israeli officials contacted by JTA would not comment for this story.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Capitol Hill source who is in touch with Israeli officials says Israel may recognize Kosovo as part of a group of nations that will jointly bestow recognition once a Serbia-Kosovo normalization road map signed last year nears completion, although it’s not clear how long that will take.
Among Kosovar Albanians, the notion that they are a potential source of would-be European jihadists rankles most of all.
Selimi is at the forefront of efforts by the government of Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi to present Kosovo as Western-leaning and multicultural. If you call Kosovo Muslim, Kosovar officials will correct you: “Muslim majority,” they say.
In late May, the country hosted for the second time an Interfaith Kosovo conference, a Selimi initiative that brings together religious leaders from around the world to discuss combating extremism. (This reporter was a guest of the conference and delivered a lecture on how U.S. Jewish groups combat online extremism.)
Selimi, speaking to the conference, recalled that former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), in a 2006 letter to a Serbian Orthodox Christian bishop from Kosovo, referred to “concerns for the survival of Christianity” in Kosovo and “the reality of Islamic fascist violence” there.
“You have been in Kosovo, and you know that this is nonsense,” Selimi said, expressing alarm that for a short while in 2012, Santorum was considered a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination.
In her remarks opening the conference, Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga called her country a “secular state.”
“Our Constitution, which tasks us to build a sovereign country of equal citizens, is very clear on the separation of religion and state,” said Jahjaga, a former deputy police chief who drew attention last year when she wore a knee-length skirt touring religiously conservative Persian Gulf states.
In cities like Pristina and Prizren, the mountain town where the conference took place, lovers stroll arm in arm, young people crowd around sidewalk cafe tables and knock back shots of raki, the revivifying anise liqueur, and women wear slacks, skirts and short-sleeved tops. The Muslim call to prayer mingles with techno and rap music pounding from cars and restaurants.
Daniel Pipes, a conservative American Jewish scholar known for his sharp criticisms of political Islam, was a guest at the conference.
“The government and institutions are making strenuous efforts to promote an Islam that is good-neighborly,” he said.
If there is a Kosovar religion, it is pro-Americanism: Statues of and streets named for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and other U.S. officials dot the country. There are parades on the Fourth of July and Presidents’ Day.
National identity trumps religious identity, Kosovar officials say; Kosovars waged war to preserve the Albanian heritage they share with their neighbors to the south. Catholic ethnic Albanians in Kosovo identified with the national cause. Mother Teresa, the Albanian-born Catholic icon who received her religious vows in Kosovo, is a national hero.
Yet the scars of the conflict between Serbs and Albanians are most visible in places of faith. The government distributed to conference-goers a fat coffee table book depicting the restoration of mosques destroyed by Serb forces during the war. From the hotel in Prizren where the conference took place, the rebuilt Serbian Orthodox seminary is visible; ethnic Albanians burned it and a nearby church during riots in 2004.
NEXT: A future for Kosovo’s Jews?
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