DEMOGRAPHICS - ANOTHER OPTION

Israel's demographic predicament vis-a-vis the Palestinians has come to the fore in recent years. Between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea there are approximately nine million people - five million Jews and four million Palestinians. Whilst some dispute the accuracy of the above figures (for example Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post) my premise is that they are more or less accurate. Were Israel to retain all of the above-mentioned territory it would in time cease de-facto to be a Jewish State. The problem would be compounded if the Palestinians were to call Israel's bluff by demanding that Israel annex Judea, Samaria and Gaza to Israel and then insisting on their right to vote for the Knesset. Israel as a democracy would be unable to resist such a demand by the Palestinians for universal suffrage and the way for the demise of Israel as a Jewish State would be paved.

So what then are the alternatives?

1. Extreme right wingers (such as the Moledet Party, Michael Kleiner and lately Effi Eitam) have long advocated some form of expulsion of Palestinians from all of the Land of Israel.Such a solution would obviously be both undemocratic and immoral apart from the fact that Israel would become a pariah state in the world. Therefore expulsion is quite evidently not a feasible solution to the demographic problem.

2. In the last election campaign, Avigdor Lieberman's Israel Beitanu Party advocated a land swap whereby parts of pre 1967 Israel (such as the Wadi Ara area) containing a large number of Israeli Arabs would be given over to the Palestinian Authority in return for large settlement blocks in Judea and Samaria being annexed to Israel.This idea does not entail expelling Palestinians from the land but rather an attempt to repartition the land of Israel according to where large Jewish and Arab population centres are respectively situated (wherever practical). Unfortunately the plan suffers two main faults: (1) If Arabs living on land slated to be given over to the Palestinian Authority decided to move to another part of Israel then the result would be that territory without an Arab population would needlessly be given to the Palestinians and the demographic problem would remain. (2) In light of the recent Lebanon War and the shelling of Israeli towns giving up land would further put Israeli towns under missile threat - this time from land given to the Palestinians.



3. A different solution to the demographic dilemma was proposed by the Kadima Party's election mandate which called for the setting of Israel's permanent borders in a way that would ensure a stable Jewish majority. Failing a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, Kadima proposed a unilateral withdrawal (or realignment) from parts of Judea and Samaria leaving the large settlement blocks in place. Since the Lebanon War the realignment plan has been shelved - thus putting the demographic issue on the back-burner.


4. Another solution to the demographic problem is increased immigration. Whilst many vainly wait for a mass immigration of Jews from the West (particularly from the United States), the fact is that such a mass immigration is unlikely to occur. There is however as yet a large untapped source for immigration to Israel. I am referring to hundreds of thousands of people particularity from the former USSR who have a link (even a distant one) to Judaism and the Jewish people. These are people that are not Jewish by Jewish Law but do have a grandparent or even great grandparent who was Jewish. Their main reason for immigrating to Israel would be for economic self-betterment. Once such people arrived here their children and grand children would gradually be absorbed by the dominant Israeli-Jewish culture paving their way for an ultimate total absorption as Israeli Jews. Jewish Orthodoxy would then face a challenge of either having to provide relatively simple conversion procedures enmasse for such people or to accept the fact that Israel will ultimately have two Jewish populations - one in the strict Jewish Law sense of the word and the other in the National - Cultural secular sense of the word (something akin to what it has to-day). In any event the end result would be the possibility of a huge immigration of people with a link (albeit flimsy but nevertheless still a link) to the Jewish people. I would even propose going as far as to search the elsewhere (such as in Latin America, Spain and Portugal) for thousands of people who may have such a remote link to their Jewish past. If such people could be encouraged to immigrate (in search of a better economic future) to Israel this would change the demographic tables distinctly in favor of Israel's Jewish Population and would go a substantial way to solving the demographic threat to a Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.