UNM Israel Alliance

Life doesn’t have to be boring and our efforts don’t have to be tiny, far off and almost futile…we can be more than sandbags in a tidal wave. We could do or join projects like this and many other efforts in Israel. We could put our feet on the ground and can actually make a difference where it counts. It’s within our grasp to do that. Think about the possibilities…

“FREE GAZA FROM HAMAS” BOATS DEPARTED ASHDOD FRIDAY, MAY 28

(Standwithus.com – ASHDOD, ISRAEL) — Six StandWithUs International boats departed today from the port of Ashdod on Friday, May 28 at 1pm each including journalists from major international outlets. The boats had a massive banner draped on the side “FREE GAZA FROM HAMAS.” Those on board were wearing blood-stained t-shirts that say “FREE GAZA FROM HAMAS.” SWU handed out copies of it’s Hamas charter booklet, among other literature. They did on-board interviews in English, Spanish and Hebrew. They carried signs to “Release Gilad Shalit,” the IDF soldier captured by Hamas in 2006.

Michael Dickson, StandWithUs Israel Office Director

Footage from their trip is available from JCS in Jerusalem. Contact Nili at JCS:

Lior Meir, StandwithUsInternational Fellowship Alumni Coordinator was overwhelmed by the “tons of support we received from people on the dock. They are so grateful that we went out to sea to confront these self-styled European human rights activists. It is so clearly evident that the world needs to see what the situation really is.”

StandWithUs is opposing the group of activists in nine boats who are due to arrive on Saturday off the coast of Gaza to break what they call Israel’s “illegal Israeli blockade” of the Gaza Strip. “We were there today with our own flotilla of boats and signs that expose the real human rights problem—Gaza must be freed from the chains of the Hamas dictatorship and its Iranian sponsors. This has become a duel at sea of facts versus propaganda,” said flotilla organizer Roman Baron, a StandWithUs Israeli Fellow.

Coalitions of anti-Israel activists have organized several other similar boat trips to Gaza, but this will be the first time StandWithUs organized a full-fledged counter-demonstration at sea.

The “Free Gaza” movement claims its concern is humanitarian suffering in Gaza, but in fact the boats are a media stunt to get international attention, according to StandWithUs. “If the activists were really interested in delivering their donated goods, they could easily do it through legal channels. The Israeli government offered to deliver them through approved crossings and procedures, but the anti-Israel activists’ purpose is to smear Israel and support Hanyieh’s Hamas regime, not help Gazans,” explains Baron.

StandWithUs Staff and volunteers prepare the signs for counter demonstration at sea

“Our mission is education, and the anti-Israel flotilla has created an excellent educational opportunity. Our signs will expose how Hamas oppresses Palestinians, and has been the major enemy of peace. The activists are either misguided or hypocritical in calling themselves pro-peace or pro-human rights when they support this Iranian-sponsored group that terrorizes its own population and Israelis. If these groups were pro-Palestinian and pro-coexistence, they would join us to fight the Hamas-caused disaster,” said Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of StandWithUs.

Hamas’ cruelty and repression informed the signs, according to StandWithUs. Hamas staged a violent coup in June 2007, torturing and murdering hundreds of its political rivals in Fatah, and established a virtual police state that continues persecuting and murdering rivals, summarily executes alleged “collaborators,” intimidates journalists, and enforces strict Islamist “virtue” codes on women, internet use, dancing and music. Hamas steals humanitarian aid and bombs the crossings where goods are transported because it refuses to cooperate with “the enemy.” Hamas refuses to end its war against the Jewish State. Its founding charter calls for the murder of Jews, the “obliteration” of Israel and its replacement with a Taliban-like theocracy. Since Israel left Gaza for peace in August of 2005, moving nearly 9000 Israelis from their homes in Gaza, Hamas has launched over 8,000 rockets at Israeli civilians, uses human shields, and mounts its attacks from Gaza’s schools, mosques, hospitals, and other civilian centers.

Hamas is open about its close ties with Iran whose President Ahmadinejad regularly makes genocidal threats against Israel. “Iran is our mother…She gives us information, military supplies and financial support,” said one Hamas Commander on March 9, 2008[i]

StandWithUs Staff and volunteers prepare to leave the port in Ashdod, Israel

“These so-called human rights activists who plan to meet Haniyeh are directly supporting Iranian president Ahmadinejad and his genocidal threats against Israel. They are either uninformed or they are enemies of peace and human rights,” said Michael Dickson, Director of the StandWithUs Israel office.

“If the activists had done their homework instead of believing Hamas propaganda, they would also have found out that their assistance isn’t needed,” added Dickson. The Financial Times just reported that there is such a “glut” of goods in Gaza that prices for food, luxury items, and clothing is plummeting. Other media report that an Olympic sized swimming pool has just been built on the Strip, and that fancy restaurants and luxury goods are doing brisk business. This activity was in addition to the over 94,500 tons of goods and medical supplies that Israel transferred to Gaza just between Jan. and March of 2010. “This just further underlines that the ‘humanitarian mission’ is not what it claims to be.”

“Ending Israel’s restrictions on Gaza could be easy. Hamas just has to end its war, accept Israel’s existence as the Jewish State, stop teaching the children in Gaza hatred and murder, and agree to the past PLO-Israel peace agreements. Our flotilla will educate the public and hopefully pave the way for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians,” said Baron.

[i] “Palestinian Hamas Groups Admits that Its Fighters are Trained in Iran,” Times [UK], March 9, 2008 at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3512018.ece

Transcription from IMRA, 24/09/2009

Mr. President,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.

I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth.

Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments.

Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie?

One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife’s grandparents, her father’s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You’re wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.

In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death. The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day.

Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially. It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come.

We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances – by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after a horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.

That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction, and the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood?

Will the international community thwart the world’s most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging.

Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks.

We heard nothing – absolutely nothing – from the UN Human Rights Council, a
misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis.

We didn’t get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare.

You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded?

Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country’s civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II.

During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians – Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances.

Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas. We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave.

Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy’s civilian population from harm’s way. Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn?
Israel.

A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth! What a perversion of justice!

Delegates of the United Nations,
Will you accept this farce? Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity.

And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here’s why. When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense.

What legitimacy? What self-defense?

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our
right of self-defense now accuses us -my people, my country – of war crimes?
And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?

We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow.

Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
All of Israel wants peace. Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein.

And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace.

In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples – a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it. We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state.

Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more.” These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city – in the hills of Judea and in
the streets of Jerusalem. We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland.

As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.

But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don’t want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.

I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order.

The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the “confirmed unteachability of mankind,” the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the “want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill’s assessment of the “unteachability of mankind” is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history — that we can prevent danger in time.

In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

Yoram Ettinger “Viewpoint Magazine,” spring 2009 (PDF)

The assumption that Jews are doomed to become a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean has eroded confidence in the future of the Jewish State. It has also triggered the thesis that Israel must, supposedly, retreat from Jewish geography (Judea and Samaria), in order to secure Jewish demography. This assumption has facilitated the recent entrenchment of the Two State Solution.

But, what if that assumption ignores the severe demographic decline in Muslim societies? What if the real demographic tailwind has been Jewish, yielding a long-term robust 67% Jewish majority over 98.5% of the land west of the Jordan River? What if the official number of Arabs in Judea and Samaria is inflated by 53%? How would a transformation from baseless demographic-fatalism to well documented demographic-optimism impact the morale of the Jewish People and the Jewish State? How would it affect Aliya, Israel’s national security and posture of deterrence, its economy and the confidence of overseas investors in the Jewish State?

POPULATION IMPLOSION IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES

In sharp contrast to conventional wisdom, the UN Population Division reports a sharp decline of fertility rate (number of births per woman) in Muslim and Arab countries, except in Afghanistan and Yemen. The myth of “doubling Muslim population every 20 years” has been shattered against the rocks of modernity and reality. UNESCO’s Director-General, Koichiro Matsuura, stated, during a May 22, 2007 UNESCO conference on Population – From Explosion to Implosion:

“There is an abrupt slowdown in the rate of population growth… also in many countries where women have only limited access to education and employment… In the last fifty years, median fertility has fallen from 5.4 to 2.1 [births per woman]… There is not the slightest reason to assume that the decline in fertility will miraculously stop just at replacement level (2.1 births)….”
The collapse of Muslim fertility rates is a derivative of modernization, rapid urbanization and internal security concerns by dictators. They fear the consequences of rapid population growth, while economic growth lags far behind. As a result, the UN Population Division has reduced its 2050 population projections by 25 percent, from 12 billion to 9 billion, possibly shrinking to 7.4 billion.
For instance, the fertility rate in Iran has declined ­ as directed by its religious leaders – from 9 births per woman, 30 years ago, to 1.8 births in 2007. The Muslim religious establishment has also promoted decreasing fertility rates in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, from 8 and 7 births per woman 30 years ago, to less than 4 and 2.5 births respectively in 2007. Jordan, which is demographically similar to Judea and Samaria, and Syria have diminished from 8 births per woman, 30 years ago, to less than 3.5 in 2007. A substantial dive of fertility rates in Muslim countries – trending toward 2-3 births per woman – is documented by the Population Resource Center in Washington, DC.
According to demographic precedents, there is only a slim probability that high fertility rates can be resurrected following a sustained period of significant reduction.

A JEWISH DEMOGRAPHIC TAILWIND IN ISRAEL

In defiance of demographic fatalism, Israel’s demographic momentum has been Jewish. Since 1882 (the launching of annual Aliya), the Jewish population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean has grown 238 fold, while the Arab population increased only 6 fold. Since 1948, the Jewish population increased almost 10 fold and the Arab population expanded 3 fold.

Thus, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), the annual number of Israeli Jewish births has grown by 45% from 1995 (80,400) to 2008 (117,000), while the number of Israeli Arab births has stabilized at 39,000 annually. The sharp decline of fertility rate among “Green Line” Arabs has been the outcome of their successful integration into Israel’s education, employment, commerce, health, banking, cultural, political and sports infrastructures.

The proportion of Jewish births has increased from 69% (of total births) in 1995 to 74% in 2006 and 75% in 2008. The total fertility rates of Jewish and Arab women, in Jerusalem, have converged at 3.9 births per woman. The Arab-Jewish fertility gap shrunk from 6 births in 1969 to 0.7 births per woman in 2008! The secular Jewish sector has been mostly responsible for such a development, especially the Olim from the former USSR, who are shifting from a typical Russian fertility rate of 1 birth per woman to the typical secular Jewish rate of 2-3. While Israel’s Jewish fertility rate (2.8 births) is the highest in the industrialized world, the decline in Arab fertility rate (3.5) has occurred 20 years faster than projected. The Jewish demographic tailwind is further bolstered by the highly under-utilized potential of Aliya from the former USSR, the US, Europe, Latin America, South Africa and Australia, which has increased due to the global economic meltdown and intensified anti Semitism.

THE PALESTINIAN CENSUS ­ A CIVIL INTIFADA

On December 11, 1997, upon conclusion of the first Palestinian census, the head of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) told the New York Times that “the census is a civil Intifada!”
Indeed, the census has been leveraged by the Palestinian Authority in its confrontation with Israel and in its attempts to increase contributions from the US and other western countries.

The American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG), headed by Bennett Zimmerman, confirmed that Israel’s demographic establishment embraced the PCBS census and projections without scrutiny. Israel’s demographic establishment was unaware that the PCBS numbers were refuted annually by the documentation of births, deaths, migration and eligible voters, as performed by the Palestinian Ministries of Health and Education, by the Palestinian Election Commission, by Israel’s Border Police, by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) and by Jordan’s Central Bureau of Statistics.

Israel’s demographic establishment did not question the addition of some 650,000 Palestinians (30%!) as a result of the 1997 PCBS census. The establishment did not raise an eyebrow when the PCBS contended a 170% population growth from 1.5 million in 1990 to 3.8 million in Judea, Samaria and Gaza in 2007. Such a growth rate would be substantially higher than the population growth rates of Afghanistan, Niger and Eritrea, which have the fastest growing populations ­ much faster than in Gaza, Judea and Samaria – according to the UN Population Division. Israel’s establishment did not examine, did not know and did not report.

The American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG), whose groundbreaking study was scrutinized by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies
has uncovered a number of significant flaws in the PCBS numbers http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/MSPS65.pdf

For example:

1. Some 400,000 overseas Palestinians ­ who have been away for over a year – were included the census, as documented by the PCBS director and website. Such a practice defies globally acceptable demographic standards, which include only de-facto residents and those who are away for less than a year. Thus, Israel does not count Israelis, who have been away for over a year.

2. Over 200,000 Jerusalem Arabs ­ possessing Israel ID cards ­ are doubly-counted as Israeli Arabs (by the ICBS) and as West Bank Arabs (by the PCBS). The UN, the State Department and other organizations combine the PCBS and ICBS figures, in order to find out the total number of Arabs between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, hence the double-count.

3. 113,000 persons should be deleted due to a discrepancy between the total of eligible voters (18 and older) in the PA as contended by the PCBS and those actually documented by the PA Election Commission during the January 2005 election.

4. A 40,000-50,000 annual gap between the number of babies born according to the PCBS on one hand, and the number of documented births by the PA Ministries of Health and Education on the other hand. The Ministry of Health documents down to the level of village midwives.

5. A 50,000 net annual immigration was factored into the PCBS numbers. However, the average annual net emigration of well over 10,000 has been documented since 1950 by Jordan, Egypt and Israel in the various land, air and sea international passages in Israel, along the Jordan River and around Gaza. For instance, 16,000 net emigrants in 2005, 25,000 in 2006 and 25,000 in 2007. Emigration has escalated since the 2000 Intifada and has shifted to an even higher gear since the 2006 ascension of Hamas, the Hamas-Fatah civil war and the rise in the price of oil, which has increased demand for Palestinian manpower by the Gulf Sheikdoms.

6. 105,000 Palestinians received Israeli ID cards (since 1997). They are doubly-counted as Israeli Arabs (by the ICBS) and West Bank Arabs (by the PCBS).

AIDRG findings have been supported by The World Bank 2006 survey of education, in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The survey documents a 32% gap between the number of Palestinian births claimed by the PCBS, and those documented by the Palestinian Ministries of Health and Education. The World Bank attributes the gap to reduced fertility and escalated emigration.

AIDRG highlights a declining trend in the Palestinian population growth rate in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, mostly due to escalated emigration, as well as accelerated urbanization (60% urban in 2009 compared with 30% in 1967), expanded education and career mentality (especially among women), all time high divorce rate, a higher median marriage age and an unprecedented family planning campaign, which includes contraceptives and instructions to prevent teen pregnancy.

AIDRG has documented a robust long-term Jewish majority of 67% west of the Jordan River without Gaza and 60% with Gaza, compared with an 8% Jewish minority in 1900 and a 33% Jewish minority in 1947 between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. The number of Arabs in Judea and Samaria is inflated by 53% (1.5MN and not 2.3MN) and the number of Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is inflated by 40% (2.7MN and not 3.8MN).

THE FAILURE OF DEMOGRAPHIC FATALISM

In March 1898, Shimon Dubnov, a leading Jewish historian-demographer, who acted against Zionism and for Jewish autonomy in Europe, projected a population of 500,000 Jews west of the Jordan River by the year 2000. However, in 2000 there were 5 million Jews west of the Jordan River!

In October 1944, Prof. Roberto Bachi, the founder of Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, contended that ­ under the best case scenario – there would be 2.3MN Jews in the Land of Israel by 2001, constituting a 33% minority. In 2001, there was a solid 60% Jewish majority west of the Jordan River.

In 1967 and in 1973, Israel’s demographic establishment pressured Prime Ministers Levy Eshkol and Golda Meir to retreat from Judea, Samaria and Gaza, in order to avoid an Arab majority west of the Jordan River by 1987/90. Once again – and during the peak of the Arab population growth rate ­ demographic doom’s day projections were frustrated by a robust Jewish majority of about 60%.

In 2000, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics projected that the Jewish fertility rate would trend downward toward the European rate of 2 births per woman. In 2009, the Jewish fertility rate approaches 3 births.

Since the founding of Israel in 1948, Israel’s demographic establishment has tended to under-project Jewish fertility, over-project Arab fertility, ignore the scope of Arab emigration and minimize the scope of potential Aliya. It has also misread the trend of Arab demography, which reached its peak in the 1960s (“Green Line”) and in the early 1990s (Judea, Samaria and Gaza), and since then it has declined towards secular Jewish demography.

In 1949, Prof. Bachi contended that there would be no Aliya to the poor, conflict-ridden Jewish State. Three million Olim have arrived since then.

In the mid-1980s, Prof. Sergio DellaPergola and Prof. Arnon Sofer, senior members of Israel’s demographic establishment, discounted the prospect of substantial Aliya from the USSR, even if the gates would be opened. Prof. DellaPergola also estimated the number of Soviet Jews at 50% of their actual number. One million Olim arrived from the USSR since then.

Today, DellaPergola and Sofer employ refuted-PCBS numbers as a basis for their own projections. They impressed upon Israel’s policy-makers that the demographic threat was lethal and more significant than historical and security considerations in determining the future of Judea and Samaria.

CONCLUSION

Paradoxically, early Zionist leaders did not allow demographic fatalism to divert them away from their vision, when Jews constituted a mere 8% minority (Herzl ­ 1900) and a 33% minority (Ben Gurion ­ 1947), devoid of sovereignty. They did not subordinate long-term national security to a tenuous demographic predicament; they made it a top priority to enhance demography, in order to advance overriding national security. In contrast, current Israeli politicians tend to succumb to Demographobia (illogical fear of demography), at a time when the Jewish State has acquired the critical mass of sovereignty – demographically, militarily, economically and technologically. They subscribe to flawed demographic assumptions, yielding flawed national security policy, which is hazardous to the survival of the Jewish State.

There is a demographic problem, but it is not lethal and the demographic trend is Jewish. Therefore, anyone suggesting that Jews are doomed to become a minority west of the Jordan River, that there is a demographic machete at the throat of the Jewish State, and that the Jewish State must concede Jewish Geography in order to secure Jewish Demography, is either grossly mistaken or outrageously misleading.

Other (much shorter) articles and documents on issues of national security and overseas investments are posted at The Ettinger Report: http://yoramettinger.newsnet.co.il .