Why Recognize Israel’s Jewishness?

The Israeli Ambassador in the US wrote an op-ed in the New York Times this morning. Here’s one paragraph in it:

Affirmation of Israel’s Jewishness, however, is the very foundation of peace, its DNA. Just as Israel recognizes the existence of a Palestinian people with an inalienable right to self-determination in its homeland, so, too, must the Palestinians accede to the Jewish people’s 3,000-year connection to our homeland and our right to sovereignty there. This mutual acceptance is essential if both peoples are to live side by side in two states in genuine and lasting peace.

No matter how you spin this, no matter how much you try to explain the difference between “Jewish faith” and “Jewish people”, I can’t get myself to find the above paragraph convincing. I try, but I don’t get it. In the future, if there are more Arabs than Israelis in Israel, and Jewish people become a minority, how can you justify the jewishness of Israel without completely destroying its democratic credentials? Wouldn’t that become an Apartheid state?