Why do we liken Israel to the Jim Crow south? Jeff Blankfort writes:
Back in October, 1981 in a letter to The Nation commenting on a critical article on Rabbi Meir Kahane by Christopher Hitchens,
I noted that Kahane represented only the tip of a very racist Israeli
iceberg. Here we see how Kahane's sentiments, expressed with only a
slightly milder choice of language by a regular Haaretz journalist and frequent US visitor, Nadav Shragai, have become acceptable in the mainstream Israeli media:
The findings on changing demographics are published primarily in
national-religious journals, even though this process ought to concern
all Israelis wishing to maintain a Jewish state. Members of the
National Union do indeed make the effort to occasionally visit those
areas in which the national-religious public has gained a foothold,
including mixed cities in which these individuals have in recent years
sought to halt the process. Beyond that, however, there has been awful
neglect.The Israeli "mainstream," which for years has
preached the need to separate from most of the territories of Judea and
Samaria in order to preserve the Jewish character of the state; which
is ready to uproot tens of thousands of Jews from their homes in order
"to save the state of Israel," today sits and does almost nothing while
within the bounds of Little Israel, that which it seeks to allegedly
"save," it is losing the demographic battle on a daily basis.When,
for instance, did members of Peace Now last visit Carmiel? Why don't
secular youth movements emulate their brethren among the
national-religious followers who routinely send their members to
strengthen the ranks of Jewish inhabitants in mixed towns that are
being abandoned by their Jewish residents? Have they despaired of
realizing the Zionist dream and achieving a Jewish majority within the
Little Israel that lies outside greater Tel Aviv?
Note how similar it is to Michael Oren's urging to Jewish Israelis to study "national identity" and repopulate Jerusalem.
Here's a must read with reagrds to Goldberg and the Amalekites: http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=251
RE: 'Haaretz' writer urges Israeli Jews to 'save' the state from Arab population growth LINK TO ARTICLE COMPLETE WITH COMMENTS – http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1086061.html
This Haaretz article is really interesting from a number of perspectives. Firstly of course the blatancy of it. As one of the commentators to it in Haaretz said, "change a couple of nouns and it could have appeared back in Nazi Germany." Secondly though it just strengthens my suspicions that what Netanyahu and other like-minded Israelis really desire when they say they want recognition of Israel "as a jewish state" is some scrap of paper they can point to in the future when they feel they will have to start to expel arabs due to demographic concerns. "See?," one can hear them saying, "even if and indeed esp. if we reach a peace deal now with a Palestinian state we are still going to be having a non-jewish majority in whatever Israel looks like afterwards in a mere 20 to 40 years. So, damnit, we need *something* we can point to when we start shoveling our arabs over our borders into the new Palestinian state to say 'you agreed you agreed!'" It sounds terrible, and I hope I'm wrong, but for the life of me I can't think of any other purpose for this otherwise cryptic demand. I know that some have theorized that it's about dealing with the "right of return," but Israel has already otherwise agreed that that is an issue that is a matter of negotiations; indeed a "final status" matter. Of course maybe they think if they get this recognition when the time comes they could then say "oh gee, that's been settled already by your recognizing us as the "jewish state," but I don't think so. Doesn't make sense and wouldn't fly anyway. And besides, as regards the right of return everyone knows that in the main all Israel is really willing to do is make some reparation payments, and that it wouldn't find it that bad to do so. (Very possibly because Uncle Same would no doubt be willing to help, if not foot the whole bill.) Lastly what this Haaretz article makes me think of is in essence how much of what's going on is the result of the failure of the Zionist project. After all jewish Israelis wouldn't have to worry about any being any soon-impending demographic minority if indeed, as obviously had been hoped, jews from around the world had flocked to Israel to live. But given that they have not and are not, and in fact given that Israel seems to be seeing a net loss of its jewish citizens, what other choice do the zionists have but to expel arabs and non-jews? In short it's kind of an admission of grand failure, isn't it? Elsewhere here of course we're talking about Benny Morris' article about what Israeli's fear, but in fact all the items he mentions must pale in comparison to the reality that seems to be staring Israeli jews in the face: Given the refusal of other jews from around the world to move to Israel, and given their own reproductive choices, the absolutely unavoidable future for their jewish Israel is an ever more strict exclusion and then indeed explusion of non-jews from within its borders. Can't be a very happy prospect but, as I said, it must seem absolutely inevitable, no?
Haaretz has always carried a certain proportion of op-ed pieces by rightists.
Look, we want to save Israel from Arab population growth, we have got to change the way we Jews do business between the old Percales, you know? If the girls would put out for the Motherland, maybe we could do something about it, that great Palestinian Demographic time bomb.
Demography is destiny, after all. Palestinians know it, as do many Israelis. Other than killing or expelling the Palestinian population wholesale, the only hope left for the Zionist ideal is some sort of two-state solution.