like i said, israel thinks they are held to a different standard than the united states and the rest of the world. they can practice ethnocentric apartheid, segregation, ethnic cleansing, etc. it's ok for jews to say, "if Israel wants to remain the center of the Jewish people, it must certainly remain a Jewish and democratic state." imagine how beserk the jewish-dominated media in the US would become if trent lott were to say, "if America wants to remain the center of the Christian people, it must certainly remain an Anglo-Saxon and democratic state." change the religion or ethnicity and all of a sudden it's racist. not ok for the united states, but worthy of billions in foreign aid every year to israel. what a marvelous yiddish word there is to describe this--chutzpah!
Understanding the Existential Threat
Israel's Demographic Obsession
counterpunch.org
by WILL YOUMANS
When pundits and commentators declare that Israel's war against the Palestinians is existential, they are correct but not in the way they mean. The Israeli obsession with demography demonstrates that Israel ideologically conceives of the Palestinians existentially as threats--Palestinians are threats to the Zionist vision just by being alive. Such numerical concern exhibits a deep-seated fear of all Palestinians regardless of age, political persuasion, and so on.
This obsession is binary and inverse: they want more Jews and less Palestinians.
The Associated Press reported that the newly revived Israel Council for Demography's mandate "is to encourage Jewish households to have more children, using incentives such as housing benefits and other government grants." This government-funded enterprise is headed by Social Welfare Minister Shlomo Benizri of the Orthodox Jewish Shas party. The council actively discourages Jews "from abortion and intermarriage."
Besides governmental initiatives with ethno-religious purity as their mission, the non-governmental sector is teeming with demographic activism.
Academics in Israel wax on about the Palestinians as a "demographic threat." Last January, there was a major convention on "The Balance of National Strength and Security in Israel" sponsored by leading academics. Ha'aretz reported that:
"The speakers were Israel's foremost political, defense and academic experts, and the 300 participants were also high-profile people. As the chairman and guiding spirit behind the convention, Dr. Uzi Arad, a former political advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, said, 'If you weren't there, it showed you weren't in the major league.'"
That many brains came together to conclude what most Israelis know and fear--there are too many Palestinians.
Indeed, Palestinians do have a very high birth rate. The Gaza Strip has the highest rate of natural population growth in the world: 4.4 per cent. However, Palestinians have a very high death rate. Their health conditions under military occupation are under constant bombardment. Israel deals with the population explosion already: extrajudicial assassinations, making sure to kill about ten Palestinians a day regularly, collective punishment, home demolitions, and so on.
..............................................................................................................................
This is about as clear a reduction of the conflict as possible. To Israeli officials, a decrease in the Jewish population is deemed a "demographic crisis," whereas when more Palestinians are born, even those with citizenship, it is a "demographic threat." Can anyone really deny that Israel's interest is to maintain ethno-religious purity? Doesn't that blatantly contradict its democratic posturing?
I forgot! Maintaining the Jewish character of Israel is actually the widely acknowledged goal of Israeli and American policies. I forgot for a second that Israel was granted an exemption from post-colonial values. Israeli officials are living out their own 19th century imperial heyday, perhaps because the European Jews most of Israel's leaders descend from were excluded from the imperial splendor and colonial illogic that made European powers so beautifully backwards.
.............................................................................................................................................
Well it depends where they are moved to. Surely, the good doctor does not have in mind their ancestral homes, which now are either inhabited by Jewish Israelis, or have been destroyed and planted over with trees in one of Israel's many famous environmentalist campaigns--a similar brand of Israeli humanitarianism towards the Palestinians.
His first point about a Palestinian "decision" to have a high birth rate sounds like a conspiracy theory (picture a smoke-filled room with a cabal of hijab-wearing grandmothers sitting around a table with charts and tables everywhere).
............................................................................................................
Critics will dismiss this as a gross simplification. However, there can be no doubt that the Israeli officials who worry about demography see it the same way. Meridor commented, "we cannot concede on the Palestinian right of return issue. And particularly, we must increase immigration. That is a vital need for Israel, like water in the faucet." With his typical smarm, Dennis Ross said, "if Israel wants to remain the center of the Jewish people, it must certainly remain a Jewish and democratic state."
What can the prospects for peace really be if Israeli officials consider the Palestinians inherently antithetical to the state and political order? That dooms the Palestinians to enemy status just by living. Israel's security imperative is impossible short of the vanishing of the Palestinian existence. Zionism's leading proponents never did and still do not see the land as a pie different parties can share. For them, it is about maintaining the ethno-religious purity of the power structure. Power thus cannot and will not be shared with the demographic threat.
The demographic transformations of that land over the past century tell the story. Short-term, dramatic changes in demography usually happen through and are maintained by force, and the calculated application of it. For Israel's founders, it was about importing a Jewish character to a land that had another distinct character (plus highly visible minorities of diverse backgrounds). This kind of replacement by its very nature requires violence for its success. This was not about simple peaceful immigration; it was about changing the ethno-religious composition of a land through power. Just as Israel's founders were more than willing to use might to achieve a demographic goal, so are its leaders today. |
