Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Anti-Zionism at 60

Israel's 60th Independence Day is an excuse for the international
media to weigh in on the state of the Jewish state. Given the anti-
Israel bias of most of the international media, not surprisingly, most
of the reports reveal less about Israel's status at 60 than they
reveal about how anti-Zionists perceive Israel at 60.
Two critiques - both cover stories of major magazines - stand out in
this regard. In Canada, Maclean's magazine's May 5 cover pictures
three Israeli soldiers struggling to raise the national flag. The
headline reads, "Why Israel Can't Survive."
In the US, the cover of The Atlantic Magazine's May edition sports a
Star of David painted in Palestinian colors of red, black and green
ensconced in a PLO flag. The headline asks, rhetorically, "Is Israel
finished?"
The authors of the two articles - Michael Petrou in Maclean's and
Jeffery Goldberg in The Atlantic come to their subject from different
angles. Petrou writes as an emotionally disengaged observer. Goldberg,
who made aliya in the 1980s, writes as a disillusioned Zionist who
abandoned Israel and moved back to America. Petrou writes of Israel's
certain demise with amoral detachment. Goldberg's dispatch is a deeply
emotional attempt to justify his decision to abandon Israel.
PETROU'S ARTICLE begins optimistically enough. He asserts that at 60,
Israel can handle all the security threats that come its way,
including Iran's nuclear weapons program and Hizbullah's missiles in
Lebanon. Yet despite its military strength, Petrou says that Israeli
is nonetheless doomed for it has no way of contending with what he
proclaims is the greatest threat: the Palestinian demographic time
bomb.
By Petrou's estimation, "Within one or two decades, the number of
Muslim and Christian Arabs will surpass the number of Israeli Jews
(including Gaza, the West Bank and Israel itself). When that happens,
if there is still no Palestinian state (and in the absence of large-
scale ethnic cleansing), Israelis will be forced to choose between two
futures. Their country will either be Jewish, but not democratic - in
other words, a Jewish minority will control a land mostly inhabited by
Palestinians - or Israel will be democratic, but not Jewish, because
Arabs will form the majority in what will become a binational state."
While well written, Petrou's piece is a journalistic embarrassment.
For his central contention is a fabrication.
The Arab demographic time bomb is a fiction. It was created out of
whole cloth in 1997. That year, the Palestinian Authority's Bureau of
Statistics published data from a falsified census which claimed that
there were 3.8 million Palestinians living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
The PA projected population growth of some 4.7 percent per year - far
higher than any other place on earth. At that growth rate, the PA
claimed that by 2015, the Palestinian population in Judea, Samaria and
Gaza would be some 5.8 million and that together with Arab Israelis,
who number some 1.2 million, they would comprise the majority of the
population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
In January 2005 a group of Israeli and American researchers published
an in-depth analysis of the PA data. They compared the census with
birth and death records published by the PA's Health Ministry, and
education records of children entering first grade published by the
PA's Education Ministry. They compared immigration rates published by
the PA with immigration records compiled by Israeli authorities at the
international borders. They compared population statistics with voter
rolls in the 1996 PA elections. Their findings were remarkable.
They discovered that the PA had counted as residents hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians who lived abroad. It double counted Arab
Jerusalemites. It assumed high immigration rates when in fact except
for 1994, the PA has experienced net emigration every year. The PA
inflated birthrates and deflated death rates. It ignored the tens of
thousands of Palestinians who had immigrated to Israel.
ALL IN ALL the American-Israeli Demographic Research Group discovered
that the PA's census data was exaggerated by some 50 percent. Its
researchers discovered that there were only 2.5 million Palestinians
living in Gaza, Judea and Samaria in 2004. They found that Israeli
Jewish fertility rates are higher than Palestinian fertility rates in
Judea and Samaria and the Jewish fertility rates are converging with
Israeli Arab fertility rates. Fertility rates in Gaza are similarly
declining steadily. So too, Israel's net Jewish immigration rates are
positive and rising. Most striking, the researchers found that
Israel's Jewish majority west of the Jordan River has remained
remarkably steady since 1967. Today Jews make up a 3:2 majority over
Arabs in Israel, Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Jews comprise 67 percent
of the population of Israel and Judea and Samaria and nearly 80
percent of the population within sovereign Israel.
The AIDRG's initial and subsequent reports have received significant
attention in Israel. Had he wished, Petrou could easily have accessed
its work on the Internet. But that would have upset his conclusions.
Petrou's story reveals a consistent message of many anti-Zionists.
That message is that no matter what Israel does, it remains
essentially powerless, just as Jews were powerless for 18 centuries in
exile. It is meant to demoralize Israel's supporters by telling them
there is no point in trying to prevent the inevitable. And it is meant
to console Israel's detractors. They needn't worry. Israel is on its
way out.
WHILE GOLDBERG too, makes use of the PA's phony demographic data, his
argument for Israel's demise is not about demography. It is an
indictment of Jewish power. If Petrou's Jewish state is doomed because
it is powerless just as Jews have always been, Goldberg's Jewish state
is doomed because it has sinfully deviated from Jewish history by
being powerful.
Goldberg set up his article as an indirect dialogue between far-
leftist novelist David Grossman, whose son Uri was killed in the
Second Lebanon War and Olmert - who Grossman blames for his son's
death. Goldberg served as the moderator. Goldberg's decision to focus
his analysis on Grossman was a revealing one. While Grossman enjoys a
pride of place among the radical leftist elite, he is a marginal
figure in Israeli society. Yet by Goldberg's telling, Grossman is a
giant. As he tells it, Grossman's son's death in war, "became a
national tragedy." Yet this is untrue.
Goldberg likes Grossman, because like Goldberg, Grossman doesn't feel
comfortable with Jewish power. Goldberg notes approvingly that during
the course of the Second Lebanon war, Grossman held a press conference
with fellow radical leftist novelists A.B. Yehoshua and Amoz Oz
demanding that Israel not launch a ground offensive in Lebanon.
Goldberg ignores the fact that their call was widely ignored by the
general public and to the extent that their press conference evoked a
response, it was a negative one.
Goldberg recalled that after that press conference, Grossman told him,
"Force [against Hizbullah] will fan the flames of hatred for Israel in
the region and the entire world, and may even... create the situation
that will bring upon us the next war and push the Middle East to an
all-out regional war."
What is bizarre about Grossman's statement is that it was made while
Israel was in the midst of a regional war. The war was fought by
Hizbullah forces but it was directed by Iran, and Hizbullah was armed
and equipped by Syria with Russian assistance. Today Grossman, who
advocates negotiations with Iran's Palestinian proxy Hamas, is none
the wiser and no less isolated from mainstream Israeli opinion. Yet
Goldberg misleads his readers by claiming that Grossman's views are
mainstream and influential.
Goldberg's assessment of Israel as destined to fail is predicated on
two ideological opinions which imbue both his narrative and his
analysis. First, he claims that Israel's decision to build communities
beyond the 1949 armistice lines is the reason that the Arabs refuse to
make peace with it. That is, it is Israel's fault that there is no
peace. Arabs are not actors, they merely react to Israel. Second, and
more fundamentally, Goldberg argues because Israel is powerful, it is
necessarily immoral.
Far from a moral argument, Goldberg's second assertion renders his
analysis a moral perversion. For him, there is no distinction between
actors only between their relative military power. It is military
strength, or the absence of military strength, that determines if a
nation should be supported or delegitimized. In his mind, there is
little difference between a powerful Israel and a powerful Germany.
Both are destined to use power to advance evil. By the same token,
since America is militarily powerful, its campaign in Iraq is evil and
since al-Qaida in Iraq is militarily weak, it is a victim, and good,
just like the Palestinians.
Goldberg's view is just as familiar as Petrou's. As Prof. Ruth Wisse
from Harvard University wrote in her recently published book Jews and
Power, throughout the years of Jewish powerlessness in 18 centuries of
exile, many Jews confused their tragic and lamentable existential
condition for a moral virtue. They reviled Zionism with its message of
Jewish empowerment because they refused to recognize that power can be
used to advance both good and evil, depending on the identity of those
who wield it. For Goldberg, then, it is the very success of Zionism in
empowering Jews that makes it unacceptable.
In the end, the unifying factor in Petrou's and Goldberg's anti-
Zionism is that both ignore Zionists. For Petrou, Zionists are
irrelevant because they are doomed to fail whoever they are. For
Goldberg, Zionists are no more than symbols. They cannot be moral
because they are powerful.
Israel's success is a testament to the enduring ingenuity and strength
of the Jewish people as moral actors. The longevity of anti-Zionism is
a testament to the fact that no matter what Israel's accomplishments,
there will always be those who fail to see them
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627018343&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

ISRAELE: PERCHE' E' APARTHEID
di Uri Davis *
Contrariamente alla legislazione degli Stati uniti che riconosce,
nell’ambito di una Costituzione democratica, una cittadinanza unica e
universale per tutti i cittadini Usa senza distinzioni nazionali,
religiose, linguistiche, tribali, nonché di orientamenti sessuali, lo
Stato d’Israele non conferisce una cittadinanza universale a tutti i
suoi cittadini. Guidato dalla dominante ideologia del sionismo
politico il legislatore israeliano (la Knesset) ha varato quattro
differenti tipi di cittadinanza che esprimono una diseguaglianza
lampante nella legge stessa, rappresentando - in altre parole - una
nuova forma di Apartheid.
Nello Stato di Israele il diritto di partecipare alla vita politica di
un cittadino che ai termini di legge viene classificato come "non
Ebreo" (cioè "Arabo") è formalmente uguale al diritto di un cittadino
classificato per la legge come "Ebreo". Analogamente la posizione di
fronte alla legge dei tribunali di un cittadino classificato come "non
Ebreo" è formalmente uguale a quella di un cittadino classificato per
legge come "Ebreo". Invece nei confronti dei servizi sociali e di
welfare e delle risorse materiali dello Stato i diritti di un
cittadino definito per legge come "non Ebreo" non sono uguali a quelli
di un cittadino definito come "Ebreo". Fino alla sentenza della Corte
Suprema afferente al caso Qaadan contro Qatzir (marzo 2000), ai
cittadini che per legge venivano definiti come "non Ebrei" (cioè
"Arabi") veniva negato l’accesso al 93% del territorio di Israele
prima del 1967 gestito dalla Israel Land Administration (Ila).
In altre parole, il sistema giuridico israeliano si basa su almeno due
categorie di cittadinanza. La categoria "A" vale per cittadini che la
legge definisce come "Ebrei" cui la legge stessa conferisce un accesso
preferenziale alle risorse materiali dello Stato come anche ai sevizi
sociali e di welfare per il solo fatto di essere, per legge, "Ebrei";
in contrasto con la cittadinanza di categoria "B" i cui componenti
sono classificati per legge come "non Ebrei", cioè come "Arabi" e come
tali discriminati dalla legge per quanto concerne la parità di accesso
alle risorse materiali dello Stato ai servizi sociali e di welfare e
soprattuttto per ciò che concerne la parità di diritti di accesso alla
terra ed all’acqua. Tuttavia nell’ambito della cittadinanza di
categoria "B" esiste nello Stato di Israele - in virtù della Legge
sulla Proprietà Assenteista del 1950 - anche una categoria "C"
comprendente quei cittadini arabi che pur presenti dentro lo stato
vengono classificati dalla legge come ‘assenti’. Questi cittadini
arabi sono in effetti presenti in Isreale come contribuenti e come
votanti ma - essendo classificati come "assenti" dalla summenzionata
legge oscena - si vedono negati tutti i diritti alle proprietà (terre,
case, società, azioni, conti in banca, cassette di sicurezza, ecc.) in
loro possesso fino al 1948. Intorno al 20% dei cittadini arabo-
palestinesi di Israele, circa 200 mila persone, sono oggi considerati
dalla legge israeliana come cittadini di categoria "C", cioè come
"presenti-assenteisti".
Inoltre, sempre in virtù della legge sulla Proprietà Assenteista del
1950, il legislatore israeliano (la Knesset) ha stabilito per legge
una cittadinanza di categoria "D" formata dai 750 mila profughi di
Palestina del 1948 e dei loro discendenti - valutati dall’Unrwa
intorno alle quattro milioni di persone - cui è stata negata la
cittadinanza.
Secondo ii termini della Risoluzione dell’Onu 181 (Piano di
Spartizione con Unione Economica) del novembre 1947 - cioè il
documento costitutivo dello Stato di Israele e dello Stato di
Palestina che prevedeva la spartizione del territorio della Palestina
del Mandato Britannico in uno "Stato Ebraico" ed uno "Stato Arabo" -
gli attuali 4 milioni di profughi della Palestina del 1948 hanno
diritto alla cittadinanza dello "Stato Ebraico". Tuttavia il
legislatore israeliano (la Knesset) in virtù della suddetta Legge
sulla Proprietà Assenteista ed in violazione delle norme della
Dichiarazione Universale sui Diritti Umani e delle norme di legge
internazionali ha denazionalizzato la massa dei profughi della
Palestina del 1948 negando loro il diritto alla cittadinanza
israeliana e trasformandoli così in apolidi.
Secondo i termini dei suddetti documenti costitutivi dello Stato di
Israele dello Stato di Palestina (risoluzione Onu 181) tutti gli ebrei
normalmente residenti nei territori attribuiti dall’Onu allo "Stato
Arabo" avevano diritto alla cittadinanza dello "Stato Arabo" mentre
tutti gli arabi normalmente residenti nei territori attribuiti
dall’Onu allo "Stato Ebraico" (inclusi, certamente, tutti i profughi
palestinesi del 1948 ed i loro discendenti) avevano diritto alla
cittadinanza dello "Stato Ebraico" ed ovviamente ai titoli delle loro
proprietà in Israele ed al diritto di ritornare...
*docente dell’Università di Durham (Londra) ed autore di un noto
volume sulla discriminazione etnico-nazionale in Israele [Israel: An
Apartheid State Zed Books, London, 1987 & 1990]. La versione integrale
del pezzo si trova sul sito: 
www.mediareviewnet.com/Uri/20Davis/20Opinion/20Piece.htm
, il Manifesto ha tradotto e pubblicato gli ampi stralci che
riportiamo sul giornale

 THE JERUSALEM POST
toh, bingo!