Christian Friends of Israel - Jerusalem IND Weekly October 13-17, 2014 Israeli Sovereignty over the West Bank Recently economist and author David Goldman wrote an article called “Between the Settlers and the Unsettlers, the One-State Solution Is on Our Doorstep.” In this article he says “Israel will have to apply its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria in the not too distant future because the Palestinians are incapable of governing themselves, and someone needs to be in charge in the areas in the face of the growing instability and radicalization of the region.” Carolyn Glick has posted a portion of this article on her website. Almost all over the world there is a decline in fertility with resulting drops in birth rates. Goldman says Israel is the great exception to the decline in fertility from North Africa to Iran. The evidence is now overwhelming that a Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the sea is [inevitable]. He goes on to point out that the fertility of Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza has dropped to fewer than three children per female, while the fertility of Israeli Jews has risen above three children per female. Furthermore, Jewish immigration [to Israel] is consistently positive and accelerating, while Palestinian emigration [leaving the area] which is at an estimated 10,000 per year since 1967, is reducing the total Arab population west of the Jordan River. “Palestine Authority data exaggerated Arab numbers in Judea and Samaria by about 30 percent, or 648,000 people, as of the 1997 census. As Caroline Glick observes in her 2014 book The Israeli Solution, Jews will constitute a 60 percent majority between the river and the sea, and ‘some anticipate that due almost entirely to Jewish immigration, Jews could comprise an 80 percent majority within the 1949 armistice lines and Judea and Samaria by 2035.’” Goldman says, “Israel therefore has little to fear demographically from annexation. Net Jewish immigration and net Arab emigration will combine with higher Jewish fertility to establish a Jewish supermajority over time. The character of the West Bank population is changing: It is becoming older and more educated, and increasing numbers of Arabs are benefiting from the strong Israeli economy. Over time, West Bank Arabs may embrace Israeli citizenship—when it is offered—as firmly as their counterparts inside the Green Line. The so-called apartheid issue is a canard. Israeli Arabs lived under martial law between the end of the War of Independence in 1949 and 1966, and no one spoke of apartheid. Israel’s most pressing problem in the near future may be Arab refugees trying to get in!” (Italics added). Goldman continues: “As a non-Israeli, I do not wish to recommend a particular course of action to Israel’s government. But the notion that the Palestinians could stay clear of the riptide that has engulfed their neighbors was fanciful to begin with and has now been trampled by events. Over the past two decades, since the Oslo agreements were signed, the Palestine Authority has shown little ability to govern anything. After Egypt’s military government suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood, it turned viciously against the Brotherhood’s Palestinian wing, Hamas, and blockaded Gaza. If the PA were capable of ruling the West Bank, it would have allied with Egypt and Saudi Arabia to further isolate Hamas: Instead the PA formed a national unity government with Hamas. Events have shown that the PA cannot rule without Hamas, and it cannot rule with Hamas; it can neither support nor suppress terrorism on the West Bank. The inability of the Palestine Authority to govern, the inability of Hamas to distance itself from its patron in Tehran, and the collapse of the surrounding states eventually will require Israel to assume control over the West Bank. This time the Israelis will stay.” Again, quoting Goldman, “Israel can’t rely on the PA to conduct counterterrorism operations against Hamas, its coalition partner. Israel’s border with the Hashemite Kingdom in the Jordan Valley, meanwhile, has become a strategic pivot. ISIS is now operating in strength at the common border of Israel, Syria, Jordan, and occupied Iraqi-Syrian border towns close to the common frontier with Jordan. Jordan’s own security requires a strong IDF presence on its western border.” The author concludes: “The historical homeland of the Jewish people will pass into Israeli sovereignty not because the national-religious will it to be so, or because an Israeli government seeks territorial aggrandizement, but because Israel will be the last man standing in the region, the only state able to govern Judea and Samaria, and the only military force capable of securing its borders. It will happen without fanfare, de facto rather than de jure, at some moment in the not-too-distant future when the foreign ministries of the West are locked in crisis session over Iraq or Syria. And it will happen with the tacit support of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.” [Emphasis mine.] David Goldman, whom I have quoted extensively above, says he is a religious Jew who writes from a Judeo-Christian perspective and often focuses on demographic and economic factors in his analyses; he says his subject matter proceeds “from the [idea of] the mortality of nations and its causes, Western secularism, Asian anomie*, and unadaptable Islam.” [*The word “anomie” denotes a condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals.] Carolyn Glick, in posting parts of Goldman’s article, shows that she pretty much agrees with the author. And I might say that, with minor exceptions, I agree with both of them. “The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God” Genesis 17:8 Reporting for CFI Jerusalem, Lonnie C. Mings
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 09:06:23 +0000
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