The Yamin Israel Peace Plan

By Professor Paul Eidelberg

*Based on a paper of the author published by the Ariel Center for Policy Research, October 2001.

I. INTRODUCTION

CERTAIN politicians advocate a Palestinian state as a means of solving Israel's Arab demographic problem. For it is widely known, but never made a subject of public discussion, that such is the prolific birthrate of Israel's Arab inhabitants that they will soon outnumber Jews perhaps in less than twenty years. The democratic principle of one adult/one vote will then enable these Arabs to control the Knesset and, by perfectly legal means, transform the Jewish state into an Arab state. Obviously such a state will not be democratic.

This self-destructive logic of democracy can be avoided, or so some naively believe, by creating a Palestinian state in the "West bank" to which Israel's Arab population may immigrate and there become citizens. Alternatively, these Arabs may remain in Israel, but their citizenship, hence their Israeli voting rights, will be transferred, as it were, to the new Palestinian state.

This scenario can only be spawned by those who refuse to take Arabs or Islam seriously, or who simply lack the intellectual integrity or moral courage to acknowledge the obvious: the Arabs of Israel are committed to Israel's destruction, and they are multiplying to hasten that end. Year after year these Arabs have committed hundreds of politically motivated assaults including stabbings, shootings, arson, and sabotage. They have collaborated with the PLO and other terrorist organizations and have even formed terrorist cells of their own. Several have been implicated in suicide bombings. But even as early as 1990, no less than 62% of these "Israeli" Arabs openly supported Saddam Hussein despite his threat to incinerate half of Israel! No wonder they are exempt from military service.

These Arabs have no intention of leaving Israel. Here they enjoy all the rights of Jews as well as educational opportunities unequalled in the Arab-Islamic world. In Israel, moreover, they can refrain from paying taxes, commit crimes with impunity, and receive subsidies for large-families to facilitate their eventual political ascendancy. Hence it is futile and sheer folly to try and solve Israel's internal demographic problem by creating a Palestinian state on Israel's vulnerable eastern border.

II. THE PALESTINIAN PROBLEM

Israel's internal demographic problem can be solved by vigorously addressing the more urgent Palestinian problem. Those who advocate a Palestinian state ignore the fact that even now here are more Arabs than Jews west of the Jordan and most reject Israel's existence. Therefore, an intellectually honest and courageous government will:

(1) Abrogate the Oslo Agreement and, in one swift and sweeping attack, eliminate the entire Palestinian Authority and its terrorist network. (Every delay increases the likelihood that the PA will acquire deadlier weapons.) The only justification Israel need offer the world is the U.S. response to 9/11. There is no moral difference whatever between the U.S. destruction of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan6,000 miles from Washington and Israel's destruction of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure next door to Jerusalem.

(2) Declare Jewish sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (including unequivocal jurisdiction over the Temple Mount) while broadcasting evidence from Biblical and American sources confirming Israel's God-given as well as superior legal right to these areas. (The Arabs in these areas will of course retain the civil rights they enjoyed under Israeli law.)

(3) Relocate certain cabinet ministries into Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. (This will convince Arabs that the Jews intend to remain in these areas permanently.)

(4) Sell small plots of land in these areas at very low prices to Jews in Israel and abroad with the proviso that they settle on the land, say for a period of six years. This would diminish the dangerous population density of Israel's large cities and, at the same time, encourage Jewish immigration to Israel. (Enfranchising Israelis living abroad would encourage tens of thousands of these Jews to return to their homeland.)

(5) Develop model cities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza by attracting foreign capital investment on terms favorable to the investors. Based on past experience, and given Israel's Gross Domestic Product of $106 billion, another 200,000 Jews can be settled in Judea and Samaria within a few years. Their presence will prompt more and more Arabs to leave, as they have done in the past and as tens of thousands are doing even now.

(Had such policies been implemented shortly after the Six-Day War, the idea of a Palestinian state would have died before it was born.)

Once Israel seizes the initiative vis-à-vis the Palestinian Arabs, it will be psychologically primed to deal with the internal Arab demographic problem.

III. THE ARAB DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEM

Few people realize that the influence of the Arab vote on Israeli politicians is a basic cause of the Arab Palestinian problem and will continue to hinder the dissolution of that problem. Arab voting power can decisively influence who will be Israel's prime minister and thereby shape not only the character but the borders of the state. Israel's political elites have long been aware of this fact.

Thus, on May 6, 1976, then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said this to high school graduates about to enter the army:

The majority of the people living in a Jewish State must be Jewish. We must prevent a situation of an insufficient Jewish majority and we dare not have a Jewish minority....There is room for a non-Jewish minority on condition that it accept the destiny of the State vis-a- vis the Jewish people, culture, tradition, and belief. The minority is entitled to equal rights as individuals with respect to their distinct religion and culture, but not more than that.

Rabin's last sentence obviously refers to Israel's Arab inhabitants. It clearly implies that their rights as individuals do not include equal political rights! In May 1976, however, Rabin's Labor Party was not dependent on the Arab vote as it was to become a year later when Labor's 29-year control of Israel's Government came to an end. Labor's electoral base was shrinking. Religious Jews, with a much higher birthrate than secular Jews, were shifting to the less secular Likud Party, a loss magnified by the tens of thousands of secularists leaving the country. To regain power Labor had to win the votes of Israel's burgeoning Arab population whose kinsmen were the Palestinian Arabs and whose champion was Yasser Arafat. To put the Arab vote solidly in Labor's camp in the 1992 Knesset elections, it would be necessary (in violation of the law) to contact and solicit the support of Arafat in Tunis. The price was Oslo.

Now we can better understand how the Israel's internal demographic problem is intimately related to the Palestinian problem.

Inasmuch as no Government of Israel is going expel the country's million and more Arabs despite their hostility to the Jewish state and no Arab state will accept themwhat should be done to save the Jewish state from its burgeoning, hostile Arab population?

The only solution is to make the State of Israel increasingly Jewish and proud on the one hand, and classically democratic on the other! This will result in a steady emigration of Arabs and, at the same time, erode the nationalist ambitions of their party leaders. How can this be done?

Most commentators will say: "Increase the Jewish content of public education." Of course, but no less important, indeed, more urgently necessary, is radical reform of Israel's political and judicial institutions.

(1) Democratize Israel's parliamentary electoral system to increase the impact of Jewish convictions on those who make the laws and policies of the State. The only way to do this is to make legislators individually accountable to the voters in multi-district elections the practice of 74 democracies. The existing system makes the entire country a single electoral district in which parties compete on the basis of proportional representation. This makes every vote count in apportioning Knesset seats. As a consequence, virtually every Jewish party seeks the support of Arab voters, which can only be purchased by compromising Jewish national interests.

(2) Replace the inept, divisive, and irresponsible system of multi- party cabinet government with a Presidential system comparable to that of the United States.

(3) Democratize the method of appointing the Supreme Court, which has become a self-perpetuating oligarchy whose decisions diminish the Jewish character of the state. Presidential nomination of judges (initially recommended by a professional counsel) and confirmation by the legislature would make the Court more representative of Israeli society, the bulk of whose population more or less identifies with the Jewish heritage, which the Court frequently scorns.

(Alternatively, it may be wise to replace the Supreme Court with a "Constitutional Court" whose jurisdiction would extend only to laws that directly affect the organization of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of government.)

(4) Enforce Basic Law: The Knesset, which prohibits any party that negates the Jewish character of the State.

(5) Enforce the 1952 Citizenship Law, which empowers the Minister of Interior to nullify the citizenship of any Israel national that commits "an act of disloyalty to the State." (The law should be amended to clarify the term "act" to protect freedom of speech and press.)

(6) Rescind large-family allowances, with the understanding that the Jewish Agency will assume the function of providing such allowances to Jewish families, while Arab philanthropic agencies may do the same for Arab families.

(7) Put an end to the notorious tax evasion of Arab citizens and their countless violations of building and zoning laws.

(8) Terminate subsidies to, or expel, Arab university students who call for Israel's destruction, and require Arab schools to include Jewish studies in their curriculum.

(9) Rescind the "grandfather clause" of the Law of Return, which, as previously indicated, has enabled hundreds of thousands of gentiles to enter Israel.

(10) As proposed earlier, enfranchise Israelis living abroad. This will increase the power of the Jewish vote.

(11) Phase out U.S. military aid to Israel (now less than 2% of the country's GDP), as well as American participation in Israel-Arab affairs. Both undermine Israel's material interests as well as Jewish national pride. (Yamin Israel has a program for this purpose.)

(12) As Kemal Ataturk did in Turkey, terminate Arabic as an official language of the State and its (required) use in all official documents. This will negate the anti-Zionist idea that Israel is a bi-national state or that it should be a "state of its citizens."

EPILOGUE

The Middle East is the place where the Occident and the Orient reveal their nature, their limitations, and their destiny. It is here that the genuinely human confronts absolutist irrationalism. This is what is at stake in the conflict between Israel and the Arab-Islamic world.

If Israel were true to its heritage, it would be the best chance for democratic enlightenment in the Middle East, an enlightenment enriched by Jewish values. This chance will be lost, and Israel's own existence will be jeopardized, if a Palestinian state is established in the "West Bank."