The Velvet Holocaust
From a national perspective, and undoubtedly over the next twenty years, the peril from the present war of attrition is not from the hostile actions per se. It is generally agreed that if the Israeli government would ?allow the Israel Defense Forces to triumph?, and this is not just a catchy billboard slogan(1), it would have completed the task long ago - albeit at a high domestic and international cost that, in all likelihood, a significant portion of the country?s citizens would not have been willing to pay. The current, drawn-out warfare, aside from the erosion of support it causes in Israeli and international public opinion, distracts the country?s leadership, as well as us, from a number of basic problems. If not dealt with fully and fundamentally, the danger stemming from them may well exceed that posed by Yasser Arafat and his merry band, or even the dangers forecast from the direction of Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran.
We are speaking of weighty structural problems, more serious than the security problems on which the concern for our future is currently focused, endangering the future of the Jewish people in its land as well as the Jewish people in the Diaspora. The seriousness of these problems stems from two main circumstances: There is no national agreement regarding the way to deal with these problems and, sometimes, regarding the very idea that these are problems (for example, many Israelis do not view it as a bad thing that, within less than a generation, the country will become a ?state of all its citizens? and abdicate its Jewish character). In contrast, the best minds and organizational forces available deal with strategic threats, such as a missile attack from Iraq or Iran. The lion?s share of the country?s budget is invested in countering them and the responses prepared against these threats are the best possible.
The most acute threat facing Israel during the next quarter century is demographic. According to statistical forecasts from leading demographers, in the year 2025, irrespective of what the borders between Israel and the Arabs are at that time, about 15 million people will be living in the Land of Israel west of the Jordan River. More than half of that population will be Arab. This is an intolerable number with regard to population density, even without factoring in the friction between the two peoples. As of this writing, there are about 6 million residents within the State of Israel, i.e., within the pre-1967 cease-fire lines, about a fifth of whom are Arabs. Already today, 24 years before the year of the forecast, Arab children under the age of 18 constitute 40% of the total in their age bracket in the country. The Arab population?s birth rate is approximately 2.5 times that of the Jewish birth rate and the difference in the birth rates is growing steadily. According to research by Professor Arnon Sofer of Haifa University, the Negev Bedouin, for example, double their population every 12 years. Most of the men have four wives, some from the Gaza Strip and the Hebron Hills area, and no one enforces Israel?s bigamy laws against them. As of this writing, they constitute 25% of the Negev?s population; however, 60% of the births in the Negev?s largest hospital, Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, are by Bedouin women.
Currently, when they amount to ?only? 20% of the country?s population, the Israeli Arabs prove to us that a large national minority in a democratic state, in particular a minority that contends that the land fully belongs to them, can prevent the majority from realizing its national goals. When, during the lifetime of most of the readers of this article, this minority reaches 30% or more of the country?s population, Israel is likely to become a bi-national state. Given the proximal Palestinian state and given the immediate adjacency, both geographic and national, of additional Arab countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, as soon as the demographic balance is in their favor, this Arab sector of Israel?s population will strive to change the country from a bi-national state to an Arab state.
This is the meaning of the scenario that was presented in Part I of this article. It is indeed a realistic forecast, unless we start to prepare a national emergency plan to counter this harsh and fateful scenario.
A second demographic ?front? also poses a threat, but from beyond Israel?s borders. In 1945, after the Holocaust, the Jewish people numbered about 13 million. Today, about 55 years, later that number has shrunk to about 12 million. Egypt, by way of example, has tripled its population since then. Similarly, or even more so, have most Arab countries increased their populations. China, which permits only one child per family, nearly tripled its population. Only the Jewish population has been shrinking. The Jewish people are undergoing what has been called a ?velvet holocaust.?
For population growth to occur, the birth rate must be at least 2.1 children per family. True growth means 3 children per family. Currently, Israeli Jews have on average about 2.1 children per family. Ten years ago the Jewish family?s birth rate was about 2.5 children per family and twenty years ago it was close to 3. By contrast, the Israeli Arab birth rate currently stands at about 4.5 children per family (10 years ago the number was about 4.8, not a significant difference relative to their current birth rate). The current Bedouin birth rate: 7.2 (a decade ago it was 6.5).
The Jewish demographic picture outside of Israel is gloomier still. For several decades now, the Jewish birth rate in the Diaspora has been negative ? less than 2. For example, in the U.S. it currently stands at 0.9, separate and apart from the assimilation rate. In other words, within thirty years, according to the leadership of the American Jewish community, Jews are liable to disappear as a distinct ethnic community within the U.S.
It is not difficult to surmise the strategic implications of the disappearance of the American Jewish community or what might happen to Israel?s standing in the U.S. when the American administration will not be forced to take into account powerful Jewish lobbies and Jewish financial support of politicians. Additionally, it is important to note that the situation in other parts of the Diaspora is even more grave than that in North America. The intermarriage rate in South America is greater than that in North America, as it is in Western Europe, as well.
Tomorrow, Not the Day After
At the end of 2000 and the beginning of 2001, these scenarios were presented before an important and respected Israeli forum, The Forum for National Agreement. Already while the slides describing the scenarios were first being shown, the raised voices of the participants in the forum could be heard demanding: Show us positive things, don?t depress us. Yet this is the situation. The Jewish people - even the best among them - does not want to be shown what fate is in store for them, but the forecast is for tomorrow, not for the end of time.
(1) Harel is alluding to a slogan coined during the waning days of Ehud Barak?s administration. The slogan expressed a widely held view in Israel that the Barak government was excessively restrained in its military response to the hostilities initiated by the Palestinians at the end of September 2000.
[Part 2 of 2]
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The article has been translated and adapted from the Hebrew original, which appeared in the April, 2001 edition of Nekuda. Posted with permission of the author and Nekuda magazine.
Yisrael Harel, founding editor of Nekuda and a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, is a regular columnist for the left- leaning Israeli daily Ha?aretz and an author of several books. Mr. Harel, a resident of Ofrah in the Shomron, founded the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and stood at its helm for 16 years.
Translated by Hershel Ginsburg. Comments can be sent to ginzy@netvision.net.il.
From a national perspective, and undoubtedly over the next twenty years, the peril from the present war of attrition is not from the hostile actions per se. It is generally agreed that if the Israeli government would ?allow the Israel Defense Forces to triumph?, and this is not just a catchy billboard slogan(1), it would have completed the task long ago - albeit at a high domestic and international cost that, in all likelihood, a significant portion of the country?s citizens would not have been willing to pay. The current, drawn-out warfare, aside from the erosion of support it causes in Israeli and international public opinion, distracts the country?s leadership, as well as us, from a number of basic problems. If not dealt with fully and fundamentally, the danger stemming from them may well exceed that posed by Yasser Arafat and his merry band, or even the dangers forecast from the direction of Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran.
We are speaking of weighty structural problems, more serious than the security problems on which the concern for our future is currently focused, endangering the future of the Jewish people in its land as well as the Jewish people in the Diaspora. The seriousness of these problems stems from two main circumstances: There is no national agreement regarding the way to deal with these problems and, sometimes, regarding the very idea that these are problems (for example, many Israelis do not view it as a bad thing that, within less than a generation, the country will become a ?state of all its citizens? and abdicate its Jewish character). In contrast, the best minds and organizational forces available deal with strategic threats, such as a missile attack from Iraq or Iran. The lion?s share of the country?s budget is invested in countering them and the responses prepared against these threats are the best possible.
The most acute threat facing Israel during the next quarter century is demographic. According to statistical forecasts from leading demographers, in the year 2025, irrespective of what the borders between Israel and the Arabs are at that time, about 15 million people will be living in the Land of Israel west of the Jordan River. More than half of that population will be Arab. This is an intolerable number with regard to population density, even without factoring in the friction between the two peoples. As of this writing, there are about 6 million residents within the State of Israel, i.e., within the pre-1967 cease-fire lines, about a fifth of whom are Arabs. Already today, 24 years before the year of the forecast, Arab children under the age of 18 constitute 40% of the total in their age bracket in the country. The Arab population?s birth rate is approximately 2.5 times that of the Jewish birth rate and the difference in the birth rates is growing steadily. According to research by Professor Arnon Sofer of Haifa University, the Negev Bedouin, for example, double their population every 12 years. Most of the men have four wives, some from the Gaza Strip and the Hebron Hills area, and no one enforces Israel?s bigamy laws against them. As of this writing, they constitute 25% of the Negev?s population; however, 60% of the births in the Negev?s largest hospital, Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, are by Bedouin women.
Currently, when they amount to ?only? 20% of the country?s population, the Israeli Arabs prove to us that a large national minority in a democratic state, in particular a minority that contends that the land fully belongs to them, can prevent the majority from realizing its national goals. When, during the lifetime of most of the readers of this article, this minority reaches 30% or more of the country?s population, Israel is likely to become a bi-national state. Given the proximal Palestinian state and given the immediate adjacency, both geographic and national, of additional Arab countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, as soon as the demographic balance is in their favor, this Arab sector of Israel?s population will strive to change the country from a bi-national state to an Arab state.
This is the meaning of the scenario that was presented in Part I of this article. It is indeed a realistic forecast, unless we start to prepare a national emergency plan to counter this harsh and fateful scenario.
A second demographic ?front? also poses a threat, but from beyond Israel?s borders. In 1945, after the Holocaust, the Jewish people numbered about 13 million. Today, about 55 years, later that number has shrunk to about 12 million. Egypt, by way of example, has tripled its population since then. Similarly, or even more so, have most Arab countries increased their populations. China, which permits only one child per family, nearly tripled its population. Only the Jewish population has been shrinking. The Jewish people are undergoing what has been called a ?velvet holocaust.?
For population growth to occur, the birth rate must be at least 2.1 children per family. True growth means 3 children per family. Currently, Israeli Jews have on average about 2.1 children per family. Ten years ago the Jewish family?s birth rate was about 2.5 children per family and twenty years ago it was close to 3. By contrast, the Israeli Arab birth rate currently stands at about 4.5 children per family (10 years ago the number was about 4.8, not a significant difference relative to their current birth rate). The current Bedouin birth rate: 7.2 (a decade ago it was 6.5).
The Jewish demographic picture outside of Israel is gloomier still. For several decades now, the Jewish birth rate in the Diaspora has been negative ? less than 2. For example, in the U.S. it currently stands at 0.9, separate and apart from the assimilation rate. In other words, within thirty years, according to the leadership of the American Jewish community, Jews are liable to disappear as a distinct ethnic community within the U.S.
It is not difficult to surmise the strategic implications of the disappearance of the American Jewish community or what might happen to Israel?s standing in the U.S. when the American administration will not be forced to take into account powerful Jewish lobbies and Jewish financial support of politicians. Additionally, it is important to note that the situation in other parts of the Diaspora is even more grave than that in North America. The intermarriage rate in South America is greater than that in North America, as it is in Western Europe, as well.
Tomorrow, Not the Day After
At the end of 2000 and the beginning of 2001, these scenarios were presented before an important and respected Israeli forum, The Forum for National Agreement. Already while the slides describing the scenarios were first being shown, the raised voices of the participants in the forum could be heard demanding: Show us positive things, don?t depress us. Yet this is the situation. The Jewish people - even the best among them - does not want to be shown what fate is in store for them, but the forecast is for tomorrow, not for the end of time.
(1) Harel is alluding to a slogan coined during the waning days of Ehud Barak?s administration. The slogan expressed a widely held view in Israel that the Barak government was excessively restrained in its military response to the hostilities initiated by the Palestinians at the end of September 2000.
[Part 2 of 2]
-------------------------------
The article has been translated and adapted from the Hebrew original, which appeared in the April, 2001 edition of Nekuda. Posted with permission of the author and Nekuda magazine.
Yisrael Harel, founding editor of Nekuda and a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, is a regular columnist for the left- leaning Israeli daily Ha?aretz and an author of several books. Mr. Harel, a resident of Ofrah in the Shomron, founded the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and stood at its helm for 16 years.
Translated by Hershel Ginsburg. Comments can be sent to ginzy@netvision.net.il.