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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (307968)	10/13/2002 3:52:37 PM
From: Emile Vidrine	Respond to of 769670

Demagography as the enemy of democracy (Even Israelis of conscience are beginning to understand the realities behind Sharon's fundamentalist extremism.) By Boaz Evron Ha'aretz Sunday, October 13, 2002 Fear of the "demographic threat" has haunted Zionism from the very beginning. In its name Ethiopians were turned into Jews over the objections of rabbis. In its name hundreds of thousands of Slavs came here wearing the Law of Return as a fig leaf. In its name emissaries have gone out across the world seeking out more and more Jews. But in spite all these Jewish "infusions" the Palestinian birth-rate grows and grows, stronger and stronger than all of them together. Meanwhile, the country gets more and more crowded. Soon roads and parking lots, towers and villas will be everywhere. Soon, there won't be any fresh water left - everying will be desalinated, retreated and recycled. Soon, there won't be any more nature. Trees will disappear and we will import shade from Norway. But what does all that matter? The important thing is that we have "a demographic majority." That's the basic reason behind the proliferating talk of "transfer." But if that alternative is examined carefully - with a cool head, putting aside morality, and assuming it were possible - we will soon discover that it won't make any difference. The angry "transferred" will crowd along the borders and wage incessant war. Transfer will recruit the entire Arab world to unite all its resources against us. The shock in the rest of the world will most likely drive the United States to drop its patronage. And then ... remember Kosovo! There's no way to win the race against the Arab birth rate in general and the Palestinian birth rate in particular - even at the cost of turning the country into an ecological, urban, military hell. Those who can only see the future through artillery sights will arrive at the day when the cannon on the other will outnumber the cannon on this side. It is obvious there has to be a withdrawal from the territories - even many in the non-messianic right agree with that. But the problem is far deeper than anything withdrawal can solve - the problem is in the very nature of the state. If Israel tries to avoid "the demographic threat" by withdrawing and closing itself off inside the "old" Israel, will lead in a generation or two to a situation where the Arabs, foreign workers, and Russians who refuse to convert will be the majority. What will we do then? Expel them? Or withdraw further? That is the way to becoming, sooner or later, a closed religious cult, hated and isolated. And even inside that ghetto hostilities will still rage between secular and religious, Oriental and Western, "real Jews" and Russians who are buried outside the cemetery wall. The very term Jewish is becoming a legal fiction. It has no common cultural, linguistic or even religious content - certainly not a "national" one. It is nothing more than a distinction between those who have full civil rights without duties in a country that they exploit, and second-class (secular) citizens, or third-class (all the rest) residents. The only viable solution is to turn Israel into what everyone, left and right, is most afraid of - an open democratic state for all its citizens, based on the assumption that a Hebrew culture is strong enough to include Christians, Muslims, Semites and Slavs. When we give up defining our national essence by religious criteria, and forcing conversion on people who are good Israeli citizens, and give up the effectively illegal preferences afforded to Jews, it will suddenly become apparent there is no need to worry about the "demographic threat." Closure means decay. Most Americans are no longer White-Anglo as they were at the beginning of the 20th century. Nonetheless, indeed because of it, America is a strong and flourishing country. Israel after Oslo did not flourish because of settlements and yeshiva parasites, but because of the high technologies produced by secular, liberal Israelis, and from the education and talents of every Vassili and Ludmilla who came here and are considered second class citizens compared to "real Jews" whose "Torah is their craft." Those "real Jews" are a burden who contribute nothing to a modern Israel that wants to be "Jewish and democratic" - a self-contradictory statement if ever there was one. It is nothing more than hollow rhetoric. Its real meaning is the destruction of society through the lie inherent in it. I am not worried about the future of our culture, if it opens its doors to all the residents of the land. It is strong, deep-rooted culture that can absorb all those who enter into one nation, that stands above religious and ethnic definitions.