Did the acting PM forget his clothes? Olmert
Photo: Reuters
Just how did this help the demographic balance? Neve Dekalim
Photo: Reuters
Demographic bluff
Just how do Israeli withdrawals fix demographic balance? A response to Arnon Sofer
Once again, the demographic bluff is out of the bottle. This time, the acting prime minister, looking to cement an election slogan, dusted off the old demographic argument: "We will set a clear demographic border," "In order to ensure a Jewish majority we will not continue to rule in Judea and Samaria," and other similar statements that have been ground do death in the past.
Population balance
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And here, even babies can jump and scream about the emperor's new clothes: The emperor has no clothes!
I'm not stupid, but...
I don't think I am completely deaf to reality, nor really stupid, but for the life of me I just cannot understand just how foregoing Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria will contribute to demographic balance.
I understand that Israel's non-Jewish population, including Galilee Arabs and Bedouins in the Negev, are a demographic threat, because they are Israeli citizens. But is the acting prime minister considering moving them? Is he considering trading territory with the Palestinian entity, making the Arabs of Wadi Ara Palestinian citizens in exchange for Israeli sovereignty in the south Mount Hebron region, for example, as Avigdor Lieberman suggests?
Is it his intention to press the Egyptian government to take in hundreds of thousands of Arabs from the Gaza Strip and settle them in the Sinai Desert? I suspect the answer is no.
What's the logic?
So could someone please tell me just how destroying Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria and turning territory over to Palestinian sovereignty will help the demographic issue? Even schoolchildren know we are not talking about Israeli citizens, and therefore they do not weigh in on the scales of our national demography.
As I said, I am not stupid and not detached from reality, and I understand that the intention has to do with our inability to rule over a hostile population. I am also familiar with traditional claims against the "occupation." It's all been well documented.
But what does all this have to do with demography? Why hide behind a "scientific" word and use it to hide a post-Zionist ideology? The demography slogan is a spin that was born in the minds of magicians and PR people looking for a way to market the idea of withdrawal, which is no more than running away from the political Zionist imperative of settlement that has brought us hither, in the words of the poet.
How do pullouts help?
I can't quite understand just how the vision of "two states for two peoples" west of the Jordan River will bring down the number of Palestinians in the area. After all, reality proves exactly the opposite, as we see from Hamas' strong showing in Wednesday's election, and the demographic balance in the region will only get worse after an additional pullout once the Palestinians declare a right of return for Palestinian refugees (to Judea and Samaria) and the high Arab birthrate.
Furthermore: experience tells us that every Israeli withdrawal lessens interest from foreign Jews in immigrating to Israel , yet another factor to suggest that pullouts are bad for the Jewish side of the demographic scale in the Middle East.
No proposals
I admit that under the current circumstances I have no concrete proposal to improve our demographic standing. Lieberman's proposals have no chance, like Rehavam Zeevi's proposal to transfer West Bank Arabs.
On the other hand, as long as we are speaking about a half-sovereign "authority" rather than an independent Palestinian state, there will continue to be some exodus of Palestinians to other Arab countries. True, this emigration is not significant, but Israeli emigration from Judea, Samaria and Gaza (yes, I still include Gaza) will only worsen the situation.
So could someone please give a convincing scientific, sociologic argument as to how an Israeli withdrawal will help the "demographic threat," as long as the Palestinians have no interest in becoming Israeli citizens, and we of course are not putting forth such a suicidal proposal?
Is the acting prime minister naked? We appear cursed to live with this "curse" for years on end, and we'll leave it to God to orchestrate things of this nature according to His will, and we wont suffer for it.
And for those who have forgotten, I would recall the great influx of Russian Jews in the 1980s and 90s that effectively shut up the demography mongers of that time.
Rabbi Yisrael Rosen is the head of the Tzomet Institute in Alon Shvut
