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If non-white majority in US is ‘good news,’ why is Bill Clinton warning about ‘Palestinians having more babies’?

Israel/Palestine
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William Frey, a senior fellow at Brookings, produces data showing that the U.S. is fast approaching the point where minorities outnumber whites. But that’s good news, according to the liberal thinktank, which titles his comments, “Building a Stronger More Inclusive Nation”:

What it means to the nation is good news. The good news is that we were always expecting this aging white popultation to grow very slowly and then decline. But the good news is that we have this younger minority population that is really the bulwark of our population growth. It’s going to be the mainstay of the growth in our labor force, especially over the next 20 years when we have a lot of white baby boomers retiring…. If we didn’t have that minority growth which is a result in large degree of the immigration that we’ve had over the last 20 or 30 years, the children and second and third generation of a lot of those immigrants, we would be in a situation like a lot of Europe is where they actually have a declining labor force population…It’s the younger minorities that are helping us stay afloat, so as I say it’s good news.

Now consider Bill Clinton’s comments in Israel last week during the fete for Shimon Peres’s 90th birthday: 

If it was “okay with you” to have a majority of people denied the vote in an expanded Israel, so be it, he said, but “would you be a democracy?” And “if you let them [the Palestinians] vote, would you be a Jewish state?” he asked rhetorically.

“The longer the Palestinian conflict remained unsolved,” he said, “the more acute the demographic challenge would become for Israel. […] No matter how many settlers you put out there, the Palestinians are having more babies than the Israelis as a whole…  You’ve got an existential question to answer.”

 When Obama was in Israel, he described similar threats:

You can be the generation that permanently secures the Zionist dream, or you can face a growing challenge to its future. Given the demographics west of the Jordan River, the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.

 

(Yousef Munayyer was ahead of me here.)

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33 Responses

  1. Steve Macklevore
    Steve Macklevore
    June 24, 2013, 2:00 pm

    To make excuses for the President and ex-President’s comments, perhaps they are trying to use language and arguments specially adapted to a racist, Zionist, bigoted audience?

    • Maximus Decimus Meridius
      Maximus Decimus Meridius
      June 24, 2013, 2:08 pm

      I don’t think so. I honestly don’t think it would occur to Obama, or especially Clinton, to even think that Israeli Jews are racist. The concept is simply alien to them. Israelis can only ever be victims, and the Jewish State is designed to protect them from their eternal victimhood. That’s why normal rules, applying to normal states – that people should be treated equally regardless of race or religion – simply don’t apply when it comes to Israel.

      • American
        American
        June 24, 2013, 3:11 pm

        Naw, Obama, Clinton, all of them are just scum sucking politicians who say what they say for the money and their careers.

        They know Isr is racist , they’ve have to be imbeciles not too know.

        But they don’t care since it doesn’t hurt them personally and there are big political and financial rewards for ass kissing the zio racist.

      • Taxi
        Taxi
        June 24, 2013, 4:55 pm

        Politicians are power prostitutes. Not unlike coke whores. They don’t give a rat’s arse about their own people, let alone care about some foreigner suffering the other end of the world.

      • Citizen
        Citizen
        June 25, 2013, 8:22 am

        @ American
        I agree. Everybody in Obama’s circle knows full well the Palestinians have been getting screwed for many decades but our new Rainbow regime sees, accurately, only a net loss for themselves (in power, prestige, material benefit) if they were to stand up “for truth, justice, and the American way.”

        Arrayed against them ASAP would be the mainstream media, the GOP, the Christian fundies, and all those PEP Jews of influence who are most keyed in to the situation. So long as the American mass is not informed, nothing is changing. American support for Israel is widespread, but paper-thin. Yet it takes continual hasbara-spouting by our mainstream media and all our politicians on The Hill just to maintain that consistent veneer of substance. None of them will “pull a Snowden or Manning” to reveal just how much, and what Dick and Jane have been subsizing all these years. Notice how neither Snowden or Manning are college grads, not even from community college? And both are just plain “white guys”? Just not groomed to enmesh themselves with the elite, say, like Chelsea Clinton.

    • ritzl
      ritzl
      June 24, 2013, 3:37 pm

      Good one!! :D

  2. kalithea
    kalithea
    June 24, 2013, 2:07 pm

    FF 10 to 15 years and Billy boy will be spinning the Palestinian majority every which way to ingratiate himself with his Zionist audience just to stay relevant in his old age.

  3. Woody Tanaka
    Woody Tanaka
    June 24, 2013, 2:19 pm

    “If non-white majority in US is ‘good news,’ why is Bill Clinton warning about ‘Palestinians having more babies’?”

    Because Hillary wants to be President and the zionists and AIPACers who control the purse strings in the US elections are bigots when it comes to Palestinians.

    • jsinton
      jsinton
      June 24, 2013, 2:42 pm

      You got it, Woody.

    • Taxi
      Taxi
      June 24, 2013, 3:01 pm

      On the money, Woody.

    • American
      American
      June 24, 2013, 3:12 pm

      Ditto.

      • Citizen
        Citizen
        June 24, 2013, 3:27 pm

        Ditto.

    • radkelt
      radkelt
      June 24, 2013, 11:42 pm

      Isn’t the settler, orthodox, birthrate equal to that of the Arab population? If so
      might that suggest a further rationale for underwriting settlement growth?

      • seafoid
        seafoid
        June 25, 2013, 2:27 am

        Not really. In financial terms the Palestinians are off balance sheet and they have to be consolidated . Yesha is madness.

  4. Citizen
    Citizen
    June 24, 2013, 3:28 pm

    It all depends on what is, is. It all depends on what zionism is. It all depends on what fattens the Clinton wallet and power. They can’t be separated.

  5. hophmi
    hophmi
    June 24, 2013, 3:37 pm

    Well, to American conservatives, it’s not at all good news, and to liberals, it’s apparently something that has to be studied. As I pointed out elsewhere, we deported in excess of 400,000 people a year, most of them Hispanic.

    • Citizen
      Citizen
      June 25, 2013, 8:35 am

      @ hophmi
      Actually, Obama has greatly increased the number of deportations. The figure you cite is from 2011, which is the high water mark for deportations, just a few thousand under 400,000. And 55% of those deported were criminals. Thus he was trying to show he’s tough on border control and illegal immigration but not so much on hapless poor Latino illegal immigrants.

      • hophmi
        hophmi
        June 25, 2013, 11:31 am

        The truth is that the law of deportation with regard to convicted criminals has become so strict since the 1990s, that there is little Obama could do to bring down the numbers very much. A lot of these people either commit new crimes, or worse, get scooped up in the system because they actually did the right thing and applied for a green card, not knowing that minor convictions can be grounds for deportation. It is a counterproductive policy, to say the least, and in many cases, unbelievably unjust.

  6. seafoid
    seafoid
    June 24, 2013, 3:58 pm

    “fast approaching the point where minorities outnumber whites. But that’s good news, ”

    Not for Karl Rove

    When there are are way more Latinos in Cuyahoga Cahnty than he knew about and even loads of them in Hamilton Cahnty.

    Big existential crisis for the GOP.

  7. American
    American
    June 24, 2013, 4:23 pm

    I just heard on the news that the SC is going to tamp down on Affirmation Action requirements and some states may be able to ban AA altogether.

    I think we’re at the beginning of that ‘for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’ syndrome.
    Wolf pack nation….all the packs snarling over the same carcass.

    • Citizen
      Citizen
      June 25, 2013, 8:56 am

      SCOTUS just sent back the Texas AA case, for the appelate court to dig further into whether or not the program at issue was sufficiently narrowly tailored to achieve the AA objective. Raising the question, is their an alternative AA program that can achieve the desired results with less broad negative impact on those negatively impacted, that is, the “expendables” or losers due to AA program in question. It’s clear to me that AA still has a place with this SCOTUS, even where POTUS and many of his top level appointees are not white.

  8. Nevada Ned
    Nevada Ned
    June 24, 2013, 4:37 pm

    Zionism, once a fringe movement among Jews, became a dominant movement after 1948.

    A Christian analog is the doctrine of British Israelism, while holds that modern residents of the US and Britain are the descendents of the 10 lost tribes of Ancient Israel. This doctrine was preached for decades by Herbert W. Armstrong, head of the Worldwide Church of God. At one time, Armstrong broadcast on far more TV and radio stations than Jerrry Falwell or Jimmy Swaggart. After the death of Herbert Armstrong, the theology of the church reverted to relatively mainstream evangelical Christianity, and membership fell by about 50%.

    Of course, Mondoweiss readers will dismiss Armstrong as a religious crank.
    But this is exactly how Zionism is viewed among many in the Arab world.
    Think about it.

  9. Krauss
    Krauss
    June 24, 2013, 4:42 pm

    Actually, there’s a demography fear-mongering article on the slow and long decline of the WASPs in the mainstream liberal press.

    The twist? Well, it’s in Haaretz where a liberal writer laments the non-white share of the population of America and then foresees doom for Israel.

    http://www.haaretz.com/business/the-majority-in-israel-is-steadily-becoming-a-minority.premium-1.531104

    The fact that this article was published in a left-leaning Israeli newspaper – and it probably wouldn’t even be published in a right-leaning publication in America – says a lot, I think, about how fundamentally different the two countries are becomming.

    Also, have you ever heard a non-politician or someone not, like, Jeff Goldberg or Alan Dershowitz say that Israel is “America’s closest ally”?

    If you ask everyday American’s they might say, Canada, Britain, perhaps Australia. Quite few will have Israel as their first choice, perhaps a minority even as their second or third choice.

    Furthermore, a lot of the support for Israel comes from older whites, the base of the GOP. As they enter the final years of their lives, support for Israel becomes a lot more sketchy. It’s ironic, in a sense, liberal Jews have longed dreamed of a multiracial, multicultural country. Now many of the (older) ones lament the increasing non-white share of America. Case in point: Abe Foxman, who never misses a chance to smear blacks and hispanics as more suspectible to “anti-Semitism”(because they don’t like Israel that much).

  10. Keith
    Keith
    June 24, 2013, 5:12 pm

    “…we would be in a situation like a lot of Europe is where they actually have a declining labor force population….”

    A declining labor force population alongside large and increasing unemployment. Ah, the joys of neoliberalism!

  11. DICKERSON3870
    DICKERSON3870
    June 24, 2013, 5:59 pm

    RE: “[W]hy is Bill Clinton warning about ‘Palestinians having more babies’?”

    MY COMMENT: Perhaps the (Clinton) apple does not fall far from the (“Mammaw”) tree!
    While Bill Clinton was a student at Georgetown University, he sent a postcard* to his grandmother (whom he addressed as “Mammaw”) in a nursing home in Hope, Arkansas. Apparently, the postcard(s) had been provided to him by his grandmother. To say the least, the postcard was a ‘racially insensitive’ (showing a barefoot black man “polishing” a watermelon).

    * Bill Clinton’s Racist Postcard – http://serr8d.blogspot.com/2007/10/bill-clinton-racist-postcard-buy-it-now.html

    P.S. Personally, I do not believe Bill Clinton is a racist (except when it pays really well to be a racist).

  12. German Lefty
    German Lefty
    June 24, 2013, 6:11 pm

    non-white majority in US is ‘good news’
    Saying that having a non-white majority is GOOD news constitutes reverse racial discrimination. We need to be colour-blind. This means that having a non-white majority is neither good nor bad news. It’s simply irrelevant.

    • Citizen
      Citizen
      June 25, 2013, 10:24 am

      @ German Lefty
      Logically, and humanely, yes. Problem is it’s SO relevant to characterize it as exclusively good news, or bad news. The obvious question begged, is good for whom? The US 1965 Immigration Act, has come home to roost. The strain in the US Congress is now evidence of this. A USA long ruled by WASPS has now been replaced by a USA ruled by non-WASPs. Is this good or bad? As with, say Israel, the test of virtue is power. I for one, don’t see any net improvement any humanist would be happy with…

  13. Sycamores
    Sycamores
    June 24, 2013, 6:15 pm

    Clinton looks after himself first and foremost. what was it $500,000 for the Pere’s birthday speech. in 2011 he made 54 speeches a sum total of nearly $13,500,000. http://www.davemanuel.com/how-much-money-does-bill-clinton-make-from-giving-speeches-158/
    he is just another rent-a-mourner or more apt rent-a-speaker doing the curcuit.

  14. yourstruly
    yourstruly
    June 25, 2013, 8:07 am

    “if a non-white majority in America is good news why is Bill Clinton warning about ‘Palestinians having more babies'”?

    Because he’s unprincipled, that’s why.

  15. piotr
    piotr
    June 25, 2013, 9:36 am

    I see that readers of Mondoweiss get homeworks even during the hottest day of Summer. At least it was pretty hot here yesterday. Today I will submit my solution.

    1. Why did Bill Clinton spoke at all on “Palestinian conflict”? Because he is a professional Wise Man, and he has to make speeches on each Important Topic, like malaria, or Palestinian Conflict.

    2. Tell me more. How one can tell if a Wise Man is speaking on a topic and not your average idiot? [Piotr makes a drastic shortcut, reads the result of 5 seconds spend searching “Clinton malaria”, i.e. http://www.clintonfoundation.org/main/news-and-media/press-releases-and-statements/statement-by-president-bill-clinton-on-world-malaria-day.html ]
    The art is to combine the least controversial parts of conventional wisdom with a tiny bit of personal touch. In the case of malaria, Clinton went out of the limb and decided to capitalize it. Plus he was artfully unclear (sounded like he wants aid to be increased and the recipients to be more self-sufficient which sounds like asking too much to me).

    Avoiding controversy of Palestinian conflict is more difficult than in the case of Malaria (or is it malaria?). You can write or say almost anything on malaria (Malaria if you will) and nobody will call you fascist, sellout, terrorist sympathizer, capitalist pig or whatever. Although you could switch your notes with “Palestinian conflict” and write that it is high time to recognize that this is a fictitious disease, an artificial distinction from other insect bites, or that the chief reason that so many little children die with malaria is that there are way to many little children in areas where no reasonable person would try to raise a child, so what we need is more contraceptives and so on. That would get some attention. But Wise People of course would not do that (even in the case of Palestinians).

    3. How is the talk on Palestinian babies helping to steer away from controversy? The challenge is to convince the target audience that the Peace Process (or peace process) is something that deserves attention, per chance, donations, invitations and so on. And unlike the case of malaria, this audience is incredibly easy to offend. For example, try to say that it is always sad if children are killed, be it in Belgium, Israel or Gaza. Lady Ashton did that and we learned that she continues the unfortunate European anti-Semitic tradition and thus she had lost all credibility. Not a Wise Person. She actually gets a regular salary so she does not have to be. And she has a bit different target audience, in Europe indeed it does not sound that awful. Here I actually did some homework, and believe me, in American-Israeli milieu there is just no other argument that you could raise that will not lead to serious thrashing and demotion from the position of Wise Person.

  16. Citizen
    Citizen
    June 25, 2013, 10:26 am

    So, it’s good for America to turn majority brown, and good for Israel to remain majority Jewish? I guess maybe so long as in America you are not white, and in Israel you are not Palestinian? Duh. Clear as crystal.

  17. JLWarner
    JLWarner
    June 25, 2013, 11:27 am

    This is my comment to Munayyer’s essay; it is appropriate to this discussion

    Or course Palestinian freedom is a right. But the fact is that Israel has lots of power and Palestinians little, and Israel has been denying Palestinians freedom since 1948. The question is how to get Israelis to want to allow Palestinians their freedom? The answer is easy – make Israelis see Palestinian freedom is to their advantage. Israelis are just like everyone else – they care mostly about themselves – Clinton’s framing is a way to get Israelis to do the right thing.

    Munayyer asserts that Clinton’s statement was racist because he engaged in “paranoid baby counting. Nonsense. Clinton simply stated the fact that the Palestinian birth rate is greater than the Israeli (although not of the ultraorthodox Israelis).

    Part of the problem of the lack of Palestinian freedom is that they have not demanded it in the way Gandhi and Martin Luthor King each lead their people to demand their freedom – by putting their bodies on the line in massive, continuous, non-violent actions. The Palestinians are still divided and still engage in, or condone, violence. The Palestinians must get united and demand their freedom with their bodies. As Martin Lutor King said, the struggle will be long and many people will suffer. But better to suffer in demanding your freedom than to suffer under the heel of an oppressor.

  18. Les
    Les
    June 25, 2013, 1:17 pm

    Its our media’s task to point out that the Palestinians are the dark skinned ones and the Israelis white like us.

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