ZIONIST COLONIAL ENTERPRISE STALLED
Arab demographic bomb worries Israel
By Linda S Heard
August 25, 2004
Gulf News, 24/08/2004
There is one thing that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fears more than a two-state solution and that's a one-state. As the concept of two states co-existing peaceably side-by-side begins to fade, some Palestinian intellectuals are demanding full Israeli citizenship for all Palestinians.
If the majority were to join this growing one-state cacophony, the international community would force Israel - which prides itself as being "the only democracy in the region" - on to the defensive.
By refusing this option, Israel would be perceived as condemning an entire people to eternal limbo-land, and lose whatever moral high ground it ascribes to itself under the faux banner of "fighting terror".
There is just one problem. Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are set to outnumber Jewish Israelis within the next 10-15 years due to a higher birthrate among! the former, as well as a two-thirds drop in new Jewish immigrants to the country over the period between 2000 and 2003.
In the event Palestinians were absorbed into Israel as citizens with full voting rights, Israel could hardly be termed "a Jewish state". This is Sharon's greatest nightmare.
And it is one of the main reasons he is turning his country into a fortress, grabbing as much Palestinian land as he can with his West Bank Wall and - with a wink and a nod from the jittery pre-election Bush cabal - is set to expand colonies in the Occupied Territories.
It is to this end that Sharon is willing...nay eager... to throw Gaza - an over-populated virtual open-air prison - to the Palestinians when they will, no doubt, be expected to be grateful for his "magnanimity".
If Sharon can convince his colleagues to move swiftly on the handover, he will receive a pat on the back from both Bush and Blair. This is a good first step to achieving the roadmap t! hey have said and will say, while turning a blind eye to the apartheid fence and the settlement expansions, which run contrary to the already faded blueprint for peace.
Driven to alienate
Sharon is so panicked about the growing Israeli Arab and Palestinian populations that he was recently driven to alienate the French by saying: "We see the spread of the wildest anti-Semitism (in France)...If I had to advise our brothers in France, I'd tell them one thing: Move to Israel as soon as possible. I say that to Jews all around the world, but there (France) I think it's a must, and they have to move immediately."
Such an ill-considered statement infuriated not only Jewish community leaders in France but also President Jacques Chirac, who made his annoyance plain when Sharon eventually backed off.
Nevertheless, it showed how desperate Sharon has become since his unlimited well of Jews from the former Soviet Union willing to pack their bags and move into ! an economic wasteland and war zone has dried up.
And so emissaries of the Israeli Premier must look to pastures new for Jewish immigrants. According to a report by Agence France-Presse dated August 11, "one of Israel's chief rabbis revealed that he had travelled to India to examine the possibility of allowing thousands of members of a tribe, which claims to be Jewish, to immigrate to the Jewish state".
"It is not easy to decide who is Jewish," said the Rabbi Shlomo Amar upon his return from visiting the north-eastern Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram, adding it was possible the tribal members would be given "the benefit of the doubt" entitling them to the "right of return".
You bet! In 2002, another delegation of rabbis travelled to Lima, Peru to convert 19 poverty stricken Peruvian Indians to Judaism on condition they immediately immigrated to Israel.
As soon as they arrived they were bussed to the West Bank colony of Alon Shvut where they were indoctrinated against the Palestinians. Nachshon Ben-Haim, formerly Pedro Mendosa, told Neri Livneh, writing in The Guardian: "The idea that there are Palestinians here at all is a lie. The Palestinian people never existed..."
Acceptance by Israel isn't as easy for the Ethiopian Falashmura, however. Although they claim they are Jewish, they are allowed into Israel on the basis of "the Law of Entry" rather than "the Law of Return". This means they must go through a lengthy conversion process requiring an already married man to remarry his wife before their union is recognised, which most find humiliating.
Chairman of the Israel Association for Ethiopian Immigrants Addisu Messeli said: "As if all this weren't enough, there is also the stench of racism. The Falashmura are the only immigrant group in Israel that receives an orange identification card upon arrival."
Because of Israel's obvious desperation to attract new Jewish immigrants, including convert! s, and its contrivance to keep Israeli Arabs from marrying Palestinians by refusing residence permits to spouses, its unrelenting focus on anti-Semitism in Europe is often being viewed as a scare-mongering tactic.
While it is true that anti-Semitic incidents have risen slightly due to the overheating of passions within Muslim communities over Israel's ill-treatment of the Palestinians, so have hoaxes, strangely perpetrated by non-Jews pretending to be Jewish victims of attacks.
The vandalism of Jewish cemeteries is given major prominence, too, even though Christian and Muslim graveyards are also the targets of such vandals. Pro-Israel commentators warn of "Kristalnacht" all over again.
As Daniel Pipes suggested in October last year: "Unless Europeans find the strength forthrightly to address this problem (of anti-Semitism) - and all indicators suggest that is unlikely - there is reason to expect a general Jewish exodus from Europe, perhaps along the lines of! the general Jewish exodus from Muslim countries a half century ago." Now that must be music to Sharon's ears. |
