Zionists' demographic headache

For decades, the Jewish Agency has been deeply engaged in bringing to Palestine as many Jews as possible from all over the world, with a view to "settling" them in the largest possible space of land in both the 1948 Palestine and the occupied territories in 1967.

The immediate and eventual aim of this feverish endeavour continues to be maintaining a Jewish numerical dominance where immigration makes the backbone of the Zionist project embodied in the Hebrew state.

On December 9, 2004, the Israeli historian Benny Morris said that if the end of the story will be bad from the Jewish point of view, then it is due to Ben Gurion's incomplete plan of 'transfer' in 1948, which has left a large and exploding demographic Palestinian stockpile in the West Bank, Gaza and inside Israel as well.

This conclusion of Morris's, indeed, epitomises Israel's policy ever since its inception to convince the Jews of the world that their migration and the expulsion of the Palestinians constitute two fundamental factors for Israel's survival.

The recent figures released by Israel's Ministry of Absorption show a continued decline in Jewish immigration to Israel. In 2007, only 19,700 immigrants arrived (the lowest in 20 years), an issue that threatens the future of Israel, according to Zaiv Bilsky, chairman of the Jewish Agency.

As Israel has already lost its attraction as a migration home, the immigration movement per se declined 6 per cent from 2006 levels, while migration from the former Soviet republics, which usually counted for 30 per cent of immigrants, also dropped to 15 per cent.

In real figures, 6,445; 3,607; 2,957 and 2,659 immigrants arrived in Israel from former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, the US and Canada, and France respectively.

According to the Israeli media, such a grave situation, as viewed by Israeli leaders, has forced Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to mandate his cabinet secretary to investigate the possible judaisation of more than 300,000 new immigrants, and to establish a committee concerned with the promotion of immigration to Israel in order to maintain the Jewish demographic majority in the state.

However, the facts gathered by the Prime Minister's office showed that half of the figures above are not Jews even in liberal Jewish terms.

Israel dispatches annually more than 3,000 delegates throughout the world to persuade Jews to migrate to Israel, amid rising concern about the "demographic threat" emanating from the high Palestinian birth rates vis-Ã -vis Israel's lower ones, as if the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is figured out in a new dimension of Palestinian ability to survive, endure Israel's apartheid occupation and give birth.

So the Israeli strategists have turned to increased Jewish immigration.

Even in this attempt they fall short. Statistics show that the annual population increase in Israel is 1.9 per cent compared to the Palestinian 3.5 per cent.

Israel's fear of losing its Jewish majority in an increasingly Arab environment has forced it to double its efforts to persuade Jews to migrate to Israel, provided that the new immigrants are rich and educated (e.g. Jews of the US, Canada and France).

Successive Israeli governments still play the tune that Israel is the homeland of the Jews, and that those who go to the synagogue anywhere in the world only pray for Jerusalem and the land of Israel.

But as these governments have concluded that the religious outpost is not sufficient, they have turned to financial temptations. They provide Jewish immigrants with housing units, jobs and a $15,000 (Dh55,000) grant.

Areas of confrontation

But when most immigrants find themselves running into conflicts with their living and cultural conditions in their countries of origin, several observers note that this very series of shocks leads to a crisis, and subsequently to go back to their original home.

Moreover, Israel faces a problem in presenting the colonies to the new immigrants as an overwhelming majority are not interested in living in areas of confrontation with Palestinians. Nevertheless, drawing the Diaspora Jews aims at raising the Jewish ratio in Israel, where the demographic issue has become a headache to the followers of the Zionist dream.

The above clearly points to the Zionist impasse of its project in Palestine. On the human and demographic level, that project has failed to achieve one of its most important aims that was claimed ever since the creation of the Zionist movement, i.e. the idea of establishing a homeland for the Jews, the creation of the state of Israel, and the bringing together of Jews of the world in it.

The relative failure to increase Jewish immigrants is attributed basically to the following factors: the Jewish migration drain from rich Europe and North America; East European Jews refraining from immigration due to rising living standards in their societies; the lack of security in Israel because of renewed Israeli wars and Palestinian intifadas and the shrinking incentives for the new immigrants compared to previous flows of immigrants.

Some studies have even proved that Israeli society cannot maintain equilibrium and continuity without launching aggression and getting rid of the 'surplus' Palestinian citizens on the one hand, and the internal tension and security obsession which haunts most of Israel's social classes and leaders on the other hand.

Professor As'ad Abdul Rahman is the Chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopedia.