Friday, June 09, 2006

Convergence: Julia Roberts and the New Israel


On Shavuot night I participated in a panel comprising Chemi Shalev (Associate Editor Australian Jewish News & Ha'aretz writer), Jeremy Jones AM (Director AIJAC) and David Bierman (Former Director Israel Govt Tourist Office), on the subject of "The New Israel andi its Future Borders". The following is the text of my presentation:


I have been asked to speak tonight on the subject of “The New Israel and its Future Borders”. When presented with the topic, the first thing that occurred to me was that we are living in an era of Orwellian Double Speak. The New Israel and its Future Borders! The borders that are now being contemplated are those of the Old Israel, the Israel of pre-1967, or worse, the Israel of the UN partition plan. These are the borders which then Foreign Minister Abba Eban was fond of calling the “Auschwitz borders” because they left Israel with a waist of no more than 10km—making Israel easy prey for the Arab armies keen on “driving the Jews into the sea”.

But this of course is not the worse of the double-speak. The doctors of spin are in a wild race to see who can create the most outlandish terms—those that transform snails into delicacies worthy of the finest French restaurant. Or as Jackie Mason once said concerning cockroaches, “Just call them Coche Roché, put them on the menu, and then see how much you can charge!”

Instead of simply saying that Israel is unilaterally withdrawing under pressure (the nature of which will be discussed later) the more sanitized “disengagement” was used. But even disengagement has negative connotations, so it too has been replaced by the more positive sounding—you may even say scientific—term, “convergence”.

Now in this post-modern world, who on earth could be against convergence? Isn’t that what is happening all around us—Palm Pilots, iPods, still cameras, video cameras and telephones all converging into one device. Isn’t that what we all want?

You really have to give it to the Prime Minister. He really is a master of spin.

In 1989, Prime Minister Olmert visited his friend, movie producer Arnon Milchan, in Hollywood. The two sat at a Warner Brothers’ sound studio with the film’s director Gary Marshall and listened to the soundtrack for a new romantic comedy starring a 23 year-old unknown actress (Roberts) and a movie star whose fame has already began to fade (Richard Gere).

After about half-an-hour of listening to the soundtrack, an old song by Roy Orbison called “Pretty Woman’ started playing. Olmert, who was listening to the music with his eyes half-shut, suddenly turned to Milchan and Marshall and said: “Listen, I have an idea for you – why don’t you call the movie ‘Pretty Woman,’ after the song?”

“Forget it,” Marshall replied, “it’s too kitschy.” Milchan, on his part, also had his doubts. But Olmert, already an experienced politician, managed to convince the two his idea was not so bad.

The rest, as everyone knows, is history. ‘Pretty Woman,’ which debuted in 1990, earned USD 463 million across the world and marked the starting point for Roberts’ meteoric rise to stardom.

You have to admit that when it comes to spin, the Prime Minister really does have what it takes!

So it’s not surprising that Prime Minister Olmert has managed to convince much of the world, even those parts of the Jewish world that should know better, that he is doing something fantastically new and original. And hence the topic of tonight’s panel discussion is not the “Return to the Auschwitz Borders” but “The New Israel and its Future Borders”. And it’s not “unilateral withdrawal” but “convergence”.

Viva La Holliwood! Viva the power of spin!

We are told that we have to “converge” because of the demographic threat. We are told that if we don’t converge—meaning unilaterally withdraw into a smaller Israel—then by the year 2020 or thereabouts there will be an Arab majority in the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. And so, in order to ensure a Jewish democratic state we have no choice other than to make these “painful” concessions.

We are told this by the Prime Minister based on statistical data supplied by Israeli demographers including University of Haifa’s Arnon Soffer and Hebrew University’s Della Pergola.

But what happens if this data is wrong?

In a study prepared by the Begin and Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies, and presented to the US House of Representatives, an American and Israeli team of demographers found that the current figure of 3.8 million Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza is an obscene exaggeration based on false data supplied by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. They also found that in doing their future population projections, the Israeli demographers were relying on this faulty data. That instead of 3.84 million Palestinians there are only 2.49 million Palestinians—a difference of some 1.3 million people!

The main figures included in the condensed BESA report to the US House of Representatives can be found in the side bar. The full report is well over one hundred pages long, so I will include a few salient points from the study as quoted in an article by Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post in January 2005.

· “Indeed, the total fertility rate of Palestinian women has been trending downward in recent years. Palestinian women in Judea and Samaria averaged 4.1 children in 1999 and 3.4 in 2003. Palestinian women in Gaza averaged 5 children each in 1999 and 4.7 in 2003. The multi-year average of Israel’s compound growth rate from 1990-2004 is 2.5 percent.”

· “The report also shows that while the Israeli Interior Ministry announced in November 2003 that in the preceding decade some 150,000 residents of the Palestinian Authority had legally moved to Israel (including Jerusalem), these 150,000 residents remain on the Palestinian population rolls. Parenthetically, this internal migration is largely responsible for the anomalous 3.1 percent annual growth in the Israeli Arab population. Absent this internal migration, the Israeli Arab natural growth rate is 2.1% – that is, below the Israeli Jewish growth rate.”

· “The study, which has been accepted by prominent American demographers Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt and Murray Feshbach, shows that contrary to common wisdom, the Jewish majority west of the Jordan River has remained stable since 1967. In 1967 Jews made up 64.1 percent of the overall population and in 2004 they made up 59.5 percent.”

These facts are backed up by Yoram Ettinger. Ettinger is a former Israeli Consul General for the Southwest U.S. and consultant to Israeli cabinet members, Knesset members and various Israeli and US organizations on US-Israel Affairs. He is also chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research in Israel.

Ettinger rejects the demographic theory advocated by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Kadima party, which now serves as the premise for his “Convergence Plan,” that calls for the removal of nearly 100,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria, thus creating the contiguity for a future Palestinian State. The Olmert plan is predicated first and foremost on the premise that in order to retain a Jewish majority and a democratic state, Israel must apply the “convergence plan” that would remove Jewish settlements and settlers from most of the West Bank and relocate them in Settlement Blocks adjacent to the Green Line (June 4, 1967 lines). In Olmert’s view and that of his advisors, refraining from implementing his plan would cause Israel to lose its Jewish majority.

“At this stage” Ettinger argues, “the Jewish demography is more robust than it has been in recent years. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we have today between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, a durable Jewish majority of 60%. To put it in perspective, in the year 1900 Jews accounted for only 8% between the River and the Sea, in 1947 the percentage was 33% Jewish minority, in 1949 the Jewish accounted for 45% of the population.” “This sustained growth, Ettinger maintains, “indicates an enhanced Jewish majority between the River and the Sea.” Ettinger is ready to prove that there is an increase in Jewish birthrates and a continuing Aliyah. “The evidence, since 1995, has shown a sustained annual decline in Palestinian fertility rates and birthrates” and, he asserts, “this will continue for the foreseeable future.”

What’s really interesting is that although Prime Minister Olmert has come up with a new meaning for convergence, the real meaning of convergence in demographic terms is quite different. It means that over the past hundred years all developed countries and developing countries, including the Arabs, are converging to similar birth rates.

According to Ettinger, a March 17, 2006 Gallup Poll, suggested a convergence in fertility rates between Palestinian-Arab and Israeli-Jewish women within just a few years. Currently, the fertility rates for Palestinian women average at 4.7 per women, while the average among Jewish women is 3.7. Jewish birthrates are on the rise whereas those of the Palestinians are declining. He pointed out that this pattern of decline is pervasive throughout the Arab-Muslim Middle East. “In Iran,” Ettinger pointed out, “the fertility rate for women has declined to 1.98 births per woman, down from 10 births per woman only 20-25 years ago, and, “In Egypt it is 2.9 births per women compared to 8-9 in the past.” Ettinger said that in Israel, among the immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, the fertility rate has increased from what it was in Russia (1.0) and that they are now having 2-3 children and, the orthodox Jewish community is catching up with the ultra-Orthodox.

Convergence should lead to holding onto territory, not ceding it!

(You can find Ettinger’s website and associated articles
here. I urge you to look at the source materials yourselves before listening blindly to the politicians or to me!)

It has been known for some time that Oslo’s Land for Peace formula was a sham. It now turns out that the demographic time bomb is also a sham.

The amazing thing about Jewish people is that although so many of us are independent thinkers with above average IQs when it comes to matters of our security and future we place almost blind faith in the politicians and the spin doctors. The figures included here have been around for over 18 months, but nary a word of debate can be heard in the Jewish community.

Furthermore, Yossi Olpher, writing in HaAretz, gives six indications of the failure of the Gaza withdrawal:

1) it did not bring security—the Qassams and suicide bombings continue (in fact, the IDF was forced to re-enter Gaza last week for the first time since the withdrawal and a Kassam rocket fell near Amir Peretz’s home in Sderot;
2) it did not relieve Israel of legal responsibility for the Gaza Strip under international law; (last week, the huge British teachers union and one of Canada’s largest trade unions voted to boycott Israeli academics);
3) it emptied Israel’s coffers without producing a “reward”—the United States in the end did not give Israel two billion dollars “for development of the Negev and Galilee”, generally understood as funding for settler resettlement;
4) it did not bring peace any closer;
5) it encouraged Palestinians to vote for Hamas, which trumpeted the withdrawal as its victory; and
6) it left many hundreds of Gazan settlers homeless and jobless to this day.

Israel’s security borders are to be seriously eroded, the IDF predicts increased terrorism (see
here), 10,000 of Israel’s best have already been expelled from their homes, many of them until this day without adequate shelter, schooling or work prospects, and yet there is a serious plan on the table for further unilateral withdrawals.

Why?

Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that there is a reason for this. Perhaps it is not the only reason, but it is certainly a very powerful one. It is the deep-seated Jewish need to be accepted by the world at large, to be seen as normal. With all the bravado of saying that we will fight and not give into terror, we are a sovereign state that makes its own decisions based on what is best for us, etc. etc. there is a deep need among the Israeli leadership of all persuasions to be accepted in Washington, and even in the European capitals. To be considered part of the civilized world, even though no part of that civilized world would even think of making the concessions that are asked of Israel. It stems, I believe, from a deep-seated insecurity based on our numerical inferiority and our historical need to “negotiate” our way out when the odds were stacked overwhelmingly against us.

Of course the situation has changed. Israel is one of the most advanced nations of the planet. Although numerically small, we produce a quality that belies our numbers. Whether in military technology and know-how, IT, irrigation, or a host of other areas Israel surpasses Western nations many times it size. There should be no reason to accept the world’s double standards towards us. We should be able to laugh off the self-righteous moral indignation of a world that tells us to turn the other cheek, when they would never do the same. The same France that makes it illegal for a Muslim to wear a burka, has the audacity to claim that Israel should remain silent when attacked with rockets. But, although Israel may loudly protest France at the UN, subconsciously it absorbs the barbs, thinking yes, we too are to blame—we deserve what we get because of our sin of “occupation”, for our “ill-treatment” of those who would sooner see us dead.

Ben Gurion may have spoken of the new Jew and the new Israel, the Jew who, unlike the “exile” Jew, walks tall. But it takes more than a country, economic and even military success to make a Jew truly walk and feel tall. It takes an inner spirit. Yes, there were “exile” Jews who trembled when they saw a Russian anti-Semitic policeman. But there were also “exile” Jews who although they may have moved off the footpath when they saw him come—he could after all have them thrown in prison on some trumped up charge—held him in deep contempt. They were the Jews who around the Shabbos table knew that they were the most blessed people in the world—and no one could take that away from them. They were the Jews who when the Nazi asked them what they were praying as they marched into the gas chamber said with cold derision, “I am thanking G-d for not making me a gentile beast like you.” They were the true Jewish soldiers who like my wife’s grandfather, armed with nothing but a knife, risked (and ultimately gave) their lives not to kill, but to circumcise Jewish children in Soviet Russia.

It is. as Noam Arnon, spokesman for the much vilified Jewish community of Chevron, once told me, “Only one who truly believes can be Prime Minister of Israel”.

As for the settlers—they are the greatest heroes of the Jewish people today. But they made a serious mistake. In their tremendous faith, they believed that not only would they settle the land, but that the Holy People of Israel would in the end follow and support them. In their great belief they just didn’t understand that for those Jews with less belief than them, the world is a fearsome, overwhelming and perhaps even enticing place—a place worth the sacrifice of that which is most holy to us.

Together with the settling of the Land, there also needed to be, and now most certainly needs to be, a settling of the Jewish heart. A large movement aimed at bringing Jews closer to G-d and closer to Torah. Only such people will have the wherewithal to withstand the pressures of that “big and scary” and at times “overwhelmingly enticing” world.

And so, returning to the topic, the “New Israel and its Future Borders” needs to be a place where there are no longer borders between religious and non-religious. Most Jews, apart from the die-hard secularists, want to believe. We need but find the spark and ignite it. And this movement is not only relevant in Israel. It is also relevant outside Israel. Judaism must precede Zionism. Being Jewish must proceed being Israeli.

Indeed the Torah was given outside Israel, the Talmud was written outside Israel, most Jewish literary creativity took place outside Israel. The Jewish nation precedes in every sense the Jewish Land. And only with such faith can the Jewish Land continue to exist. Not as a value in itself, not as a political entity, G-d forbid, but as the outcome of a love of our heritage.

As a political entity, we are vastly outnumbered. As a spiritual entity, we are the most powerful idea that the world has ever seen. If we would only know this, nothing could ever scare us, nothing could ever defeat us.


BESA Report-Brief Synopsis


The 1997 PCBS beginning population base for de facto residents was inflated by:
* Inclusion of Non-residents: The 1997 PCBS Census base included 325,000 Palestinian Arabs living abroad, even though these individuals had lived outside the Territories for many years. This group comprised 13% of the PCBS' reported population base. This fact was fully acknowledged by the head of the PCBS when the Census Results were released in 1998. Reduction: 325,000;
* Inclusion of Jerusalem Arabs in West Bank Figures: Jerusalem Arabs who were already counted in Israel's population survey were also counted in the PCBS population estimate for the West Bank. Reduction: 210,000;
* Unexplained Increase over ICBS Records: The 1997 PCBS census included an additional 113,000 rise above the last ICBS figures for the Territories. Yet, PA Central Election Commission reports for adults voting in 2005 substantiated the ICBS population records from the mid-1990s. Reduction: 113,000;
Furthermore, the PCBS Model's projections with respect to births and immigration were not met in any year between 1997 and 2004:
* Fewer Births: According to reports current through January 2005, the PA Ministry of Health recorded fewer annual births between 1997 and 2003 than the PCBS had predicted for each of those years. These lower birth figures are consistent with PA;
* Ministry of Education figures for students entering school six years later. Reduction: 238,000
Alterations of Recorded Birth Data: In its more recent reports, the PA Ministry of Health retroactively raised the number of births it had reported prior to the release of the 1997 PCBS census. Using data at originally reported levels lowers the number of births even further. Reduction: 70,000;
* Net Immigration and Emigration Error: Instead of the large immigration originally forecast by the PCBS, the Territories experienced a steady net emigration abroad. The PCBS predicted 236,000 would move into the Territories between 1997 and 2003. Instead, 74,000 left. Reduction: 310,000;
* Migration to Israel: Many residents of the Territories moved to pre-1967 Israel and Jerusalem. No adjustments were made for unofficial immigration as there is little data on this group. However, immigrants who legally received Israeli IDs according to Israel Ministry of Interior reports from 1997 to 2003 were removed from the PCBS count. Reduction: 105,000.

The above is a brief summary of the BESA (Begin and Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies) report as presented to the House of Representatives and can be obtained here. The full report can be downloaded from here