Today in a news article, the New York Times described Palestinian refugees as posing a “demographic death warrant” to Israel. The article is about Israel’s response to the boycott movement, which supports the right of return of refugees:
Most Israeli Jews, as well as many outside experts, see either such a one-state solution or the return of all refugees and their descendants as a demographic death warrant for Israel as a Jewish state, which is how it was founded in 1948.
Written by Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, that line drew harsh criticism from our community. Natasha Barakat:
Did @rudoren really refer to children as a “demographic death warrant”? I’m shocked.
Ali Abunimah:
In what circumstances would you consider it acceptable to call presence of Jews a “death warrant” to ANYTHING?
Dan Cohen tweeted the photo above:
Palestinians in Gaza use shipping containers to store what @rudoren calls “a demographic death warrant for Israel”
Rania Khalek:
It’s unacceptable that you refer to the mere existence of Palestinians as destructive threat that brings with it death
Jodi Rudoren has responded to Khalek that she wasn’t saying that the right of return is a death warrant for Jews, but for the Jewish state.
People who closely follow the conflict know that the “demographic threat” argument for preserving Israel is widely considered racist. The argument is that Israel must take pains to establish a Palestinian state alongside it because otherwise Jews will cease to be a majority in the lands under their dominion (they probably already are a minority), and therefore that the Jewish character of the state will be at risk.
Of course, anyone who used such language in the United States to refer to black people or Jews or Muslims, or any other minority threatening the white or Christian character of anything would lose their job in an instant.
But Israel is always different; after all, it was founded on the premise of establishing a “strong Jewish majority” so as to be the homeland of the Jewish people. Two years ago Barack Obama called for the two-state solution, saying:
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.
No, he didn’t say “threat” (let alone “death warrant”) but the liberal Zionist leader Jeremy Ben-Ami has: he wrote of ” the inexorable demographic threat to Israel’s future as a democratic state that remains the homeland for the Jewish people.”
But the awareness that you shouldn’t use such language is beginning to break on some folks in the mainstream– if not the New York Times. Here’s a Guardian profile today of B’Tselem’s Hagai El-Ad, by Eve Fairbanks:
When I asked El-Ad whether he thought a moral society in Israel could remain Jewish, it was the closest I ever saw him to expressing anger. “I think the narrowing of Jewish identity to demographics – that’s profoundly un-Jewish,” he snapped. “When you build a wall in this city to expunge, reject, thousands of people on a demographic basis, that’s un-Jewish.”
“What is Jewish?” I asked.
“Treating people with dignity,” he answered. “I think that’s enough.”
And here’s liberal Zionist Daniel Levy on the ugliness of the phrase, four years ago:
“[Avigdor] Lieberman is the bastard child of the demographic analysis of why we need to end the occupation, you cannot treat the Palestinian Arab public as a demographic threat and advocate full equality inside Israel.”
“Most Israeli Jews, as well as many outside experts, see either such a one-state solution or the return of all refugees and their descendants as a demographic death warrant for Israel as a Jewish state, which is how it was founded in 1948. ” rudoren.
Care to name the outside experts Jodi.
Or perhaps you could publish a similar article complete with image of “Jewish children” presented as a demographic threat to Palestinians.That would only represent the facts given the zionist penchant for land theft and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians , albeit slow .
The woman has no shame or humanity.
“Today in a news article,…”
“News” article? Hardly. Rudorin doesn’t engage in journalism or reporting. She is a paid propagandist. This was just another of her propaganda pieces disguised as news.
Thanks, as always, for your careful reporting (actual journalism!) calling the Times to task. But language referring to its content is important. Call a spade a spade. Call propaganda propaganda, not news.
RE “Of course, anyone who used such language in the United States to refer to black people or Jews or Muslims, or any other minority threatening the white or Christian character of anything would lose their job in an instant.” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: I guess Phil is assuming that “former U.S. Marine” Jon Ritzheimer didn’t really have a job to lose (much like Pamela Geller).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhjJL1gOVHg
Israel should never have been founded as a religion-supremacist “Jewish State” – a state primarily of and for Jewish Israelis and non-Israeli Jews. (No state should be founded or exist as a supremacist state.)
But it’s never too late to right that wrong and transform Israel into a secular and democratic Israeli state – a state of and for all of its Israeli citizens, immigrants, expats and refugees, equally.
(“Most Israeli Jews” might “see a one-state solution or the return of all refugees and their descendants as a demographic death warrant for Israel as a Jewish state”, but their Zio-supremacism compels them to keep engaging in or supporting the theft, occupation and colonization of as much Palestinian land (i.e., land outside of Israel’s / Partition borders) as possible, thereby rendering a viable two-state solution all but impossible.)
I read the Guardian piece about B’Tselem. Nothing new really. We knew the terrorist attacks on Israelis during the Second Intifada turned many liberal Zionists into people who don’t care how many Palestinian civilians they killed. I didn’t see a single recognition that the Palestinian civilian death toll was higher during the Second Intifada. And unfortunately the piece itself said nothing about this fact either. I momentarily thought of sending a link to this piece to a friend, but decided against it. It does show (what we have all heard many times) that the so-called Israeli left mostly died because of the terrorism, but without pointing out that at every moment in the conflict Palestinian civilians were being killed in larger numbers, even before the suicide bombing began. I think my friend would actually think his views were validated by what the former liberals say in the Guardian piece.
In other words, even this report, interesting as it was, had too much false balance. Yes, we should know what the Israelis say, but the numbers don’t lie and the numbers tell us who does the vast majority of the civilian killing.