The Israeli Settlement Policy is Demographic Suicide. Now Get Over It.
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by JL Wall
Normally David Goldman (“Spengler”) is astute, or at least astute enough to require serious thought in grappling with his arguments. But about this latest, I just don’t know where to begin. Courtesy of the opening anecdote, it appears to be an explanation of how, precisely, Rahm Emanuel is a “self-hating Jew” — not for still living in 1993 and believing in Oslo after its collapse (perhaps a subject worthy of critique without the petulant name-calling), but for “bashing Israel over settlements.”
To take issue with the present settlement policy, he says, requires “an ideological commitment to a secular sort of universalism that demands a fanatical sort of faith.” But there’s another reason to oppose the indefinite continuation of the present system, and it’s one that Goldman brushes up against with his sneering, over-confident final paragraph:
There simply isn’t any arguing with liberal Jews. The only solution is the Biblical one: in forty years, all of them will be dead, like the feckless generation of freedmen who left Egypt with Moses. Secular Jews have one child per family, Reform Jews 1.3, Conservative Jews 1.6, and modern Orthodox nearly 4. A new Jewish majority will form over the next forty years, and it will be religiously observant, close to Israeli thinking, and politically conservative.
The birthrate for Israeli Jews isn’t quite as low as that of American non-Orthodox, but it hovers, overall, right around 2 children per family; the overall Palestinian birthrate is, by most estimates, between 3 and 4. Even if those numbers are somewhat too high, as some claim, it doesn’t change the reality already present, as Michael Oren pointed out this May in Commentary:
Even if the minimalist interpretation is largely correct, it cannot alter a situation in which Israeli Arabs currently constitute one-fifth of the country’s population — one-quarter of the population under age 19 — and in which the West Bank now contains at least 2 million Arabs.
Israel, the Jewish State, is predicated on a decisive and stable Jewish majority of at least 70 percent. Any lower than that and Israel will have to decide between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. If it chooses democracy, then Israel as a Jewish state will cease to exist. If it remains officially Jewish, then the state will face an unprecedented level of international isolation, including sanctions, that might prove fatal. [Emphasis mine -- JLW]
Does this mean that there’s no room for leeway because of natural growth in Israeli settlements? Not necessarily. But I still cannot grasp the mindset of those who ignore the demographic reality. At which point, the only case for the continued existence of a Jewish Israel in the face of those eventual numbers is that of the Israeli religious right: G-d gave it to us, all of it to us.
But to make that argument means that one agrees to place the case for Israel in strictly religious terms. So while we’re there, still speaking from a strictly Jewish perspective, it’s high time someone pointed out the other side to that argument, the more dangerous side: while there is a right to dwell in the land, there is no inviolable right to dwell in the land at a specific time before the Moshiach. There have been expulsions before.
We (American and Israeli Jews alike) would do well to recall that the G-d who spoke to Isaiah and Jeremiah, laying the case, essentially, for the Babylonian Exile, is far more concerned with widows, beggars, and orphans than with the precision of Temple sacrifices. The latter without the former is not enough to fulfill the Covenant. It’s why it makes me sick to see “Orthodox” rabbis making the case that their “orthodoxy” is more than enough to compensate for their own disregard for human life.
* * *
Perhaps I should add here, at the end of this, that I have a more or less constantly growing fear that I will outlive the State of Israel. In which case, it will be the response to that event, not the Shoah, which shapes the future of Judaism and Jewish life. These two thoughts (“fears”?) color more or less all of my thinking on the politics of Israel.
Filed under: foreign affairs, religion
[...] JL Wall: Normally David Goldman (”Spengler”) is astute, or at least astute enough to require serious thought in grappling with his arguments. But about this latest, I just don’t know where to begin. Courtesy of the opening anecdote, it appears to be an explanation of how, precisely, Rahm Emanuel is a “self-hating Jew” — not for still living in 1993 and believing in Oslo after its collapse (perhaps a subject worthy of critique without the petulant name-calling), but for “bashing Israel over settlements.” [...]
I come again to what I always come to, the simply fact that ethnic nationalism leads democracy in profoundly weird directions, and creates unbearable tensions between democracy and the desire to maintain ethnic dominance. It’s for those practical reasons, as well as idealistic reasons, that we reject the notion of states with an ethnic or religious character. I believe in the existence of a stable, free and secure state called Israel, and I further believe that such a state must always keep as its core mission a dedication to being a safe place for Jews to live and prosper. But I don’t believe in countries with ethnic or religious characters, and that goes back to the basic philosophical definitions of democracy, liberalism and the Enlightenment. And means that, as the vicissitudes of democracy make likely, we may see an end to Jewish political dominance of Israel. And then Israeli Jews, like Israel Arabs et al., will have to get down to the tough business of conducting democracy in a deeply diverse nation. That’s not easy, Americans can tell you that. But it is possible, and Americans can tell you that too.
The existence of Israel as a non-Jewish state boils down to (I think) a single question, though: would Jews stay? As long as there’s roughly a Jewish majority — or even if the numbers are more or less equal — I think the answer might very well be yes. But the moment a pluralistic Israel has a noticeable Muslim majority (or, perhaps, the moment demographic trends present it as absolutely inevitable in the immediate future), there will in all likelihood be a mass emigration (overwhelmingly to the US, I’d assume).
To get way over my head in speculation: those remaining would be disproportionately among the extremely religious and extremely Zionist (settler types, to an extent, or in maybe a better image, Tel Aviv would move out; Jerusalem would stay). Which is to say, the remainder would be disproportionately fanatical, living under a government that, irregardless of reality, they would be disposed to see as illegitimate and anti-Semitic. Where I’m going with this should be clear…
And, now that I think about it, scratch that comment about one problem: let’s say that we’ve got a majority-Jewish (55-65ish%) but increasingly pluralistic Israel that looks like it will stay in that range for at least a generation or so. If, politically and legally, the matter of Palestinians/Arab Israelis is settled, it won’t at all be culturally. I’ve met secular and religious Israelis who agree that were it not for the threat of terrorism, Israel would see a “civil war” (cultural, or perhaps violent) between the extremely religious and everyone else (I’d include in this latter group even a noticeable number of those who might identify as Modern Orthodox in the US). I mean, there are already massive protests turning borderline violent over PARKING LOTS. And I’ll be very much surprised if the Tel Aviv shooter doesn’t turn out to be Haredi.
If you can’t already tell, I don’t see a happy ending very likely in any scenario. But then again, I’m probably more pessimistic about this issue than any other one.
Why should Israeli demographics be of concern to American conservatives? I don’t get it. Neocons spend more time worrying about the demoghraphics in Israel, a foreign country hostile to US interests, than they do about the demographic situation in the US, which is in large part a result of their support for distastrous third world immigeration policy. Whose side are you guys on anyway?
Huh? How is it that caring about the continued existence of the State of Israel automatically qualifies one as a neoconservative? And in case you didn’t notice, this post was criticizing the typically neoconservative claim that opposition to the present settlement policy is equivalent to opposition to Israel altogether.
[Sorry, but whether or not this comment was intended to be anti-Semitic, it certainly came across that way. Let's try to keep things a bit less inflammatory, please. - JS]
Part of our problem is too much attention given to Israel. Israel and the Palestinians are Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum as far as I’m concerned. I just don’t want any refugees from that area thinking they can come to the US.
Is the USA a Gentile or Christian state because Jews are only 1.58% of the population ? Why should Israel be a Jewish
State when at least 20% of the population are non-Jews ?
Frankly, I’m getting tired of all this handwringing about the various populations that choose not to reproduce themselves.
If the Russians go, good riddance. Ergo for the Germans, after seeing the police state there, I think the Turks would be an improvement. And so on for the Brits, French, etc.
If we let the Mexicans take over we have ourselves to blame.
[Remainder of comment edited for what ought to be obvious reasons - JS.]
Since I am of European-American descent, I have an obvious vested interest in whether or not British, French, Russians, Americans, Australians, or whoever, “let themselves go.” They are my people, anywhere and everywhere.
For years I have noted that conservatives of Jewish descent indulge in hand-wringing over Israeli demographics. To some extent I can sympathise. I really do. I only wish the same treatment were extended to white Americans who are concerned about the demographic transformation of our own country, aided and abetted, in many cases, by these same Israelist Neocons.
Why the double-standard?
Oh, come on ! A great many libertarians and non-religious
conservatives support abortion rights. Murray Rothbard
put it best of all when he stated that no person has the
right to remain inside the body of another against that
person’s will. There is no right to birth and no right of
parts of a body to supercede the whole person carrying it.
And it is a tragic fact that many of the people who shouldn’t
be giving birth do because of stupidities like the Hyde Amendment. If TAC is going to enforce some fundie party
line here then those of us who disagree will have to stop
reading it.
MH: I have no problem debating abortion rights, but I won’t tolerate people claiming that we ought to pay for poor Mexicans who “shouldn’t be giving birth” to kill their children so they don’t come over here. Sorry if you don’t like that policy, but it’s my blog.
John, abortion is about preventing a fetus from coming to term, not “killing a child.”
But I didn’t have Mexicans in mind when I wrote about it.
We have a very large homegrown lumpen class.
People who here illegally should be sent back.
Michael,
A fetus is a child in an early stage of development, just as an infant is a child in a comparatively later stage of development. In other words, one can be both a fetus and a child just as one can be both an infant and a child, or a toddler and a child. Abortion “prevents a fetus from coming to term” by killing him or her.
If you want to argue that abortion should be legal because no human being has the right to reside inside another, you should be aware that the pro-life ideology is only partially based on the idea that human fetuses have the same rights as any other class of human. The other half of the equation is the belief that parents have a moral and legal responsibility to care for their children. You can kick anyone you want out of your house, but you can’t kick out your three year old son and watch him starve on the street without the state stepping in. The same applies to an unborn child. A mother’s right to do whatever she wants with her body does not supersede her responsibility to provide for her unborn child, just as a father’s right to do whatever he wants with his money does not supersede his responsibility to shelter and provide for his children.
William in Orange County-excellent post.
Mark, a woman has no responsibility for anything residing in her body unless she chooses to give birth. Parts of another’s body can have no rights that supercede the owner of the body. After birth it is much different, a separate entity is in
existence and then any obligations start. But there can be no such thing as a right to birth. And since women are the only ones who can give birth, they are the only ones with
any say in the matter. The “pro-life” movement is as misnamed as the “civil rights” and “peace” movements.
It is certainly anti-the woman’s life movement since compulsory pregnancy is the most hideous invasion of a person’s life imaginable. You are really enslaving a person for the next quarter century in most cases, not merely nine months.
A fetus is not a human person. That comes with separation.
And even if it was such that would still not give it the right
to supercede the rights of the person inside whose body it
resides. Birth is the only objective indicator here so your attempted analogy fails. Abortion in the case of people unwilling or unable to raise a child is the responsible thing to do. The irresponsible thing to do is to bring such entities into the world where it then becomes everyone’s problem. In our
Oakland neighborhood we see the results of this every day.
If you are going to use that grotesque murder language then
call it justified homicide. The idea that a one inch fetus is
equivalent to a regular human being is just nonsense or
worse. “Unborn child” like “partial birth” abortion is simply
demagoguic rhetoric intended to inflame, not enlighten.
You haven’t made the case that a woman has any responsibility to her fetus.
Mark,
I wonder if you could please help me understand why most of European countries have number of abortions at 20-30% of ours. The same goes for the number of divorces. Is it because of different education system, different healthcare or secularism.