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The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Numbers

3 comments on Numbers

Numbers
: Douglas Rushkoff says the just-passed law trying to discourage (to say the least) Israel/Palestinian marriages is really a matter of numbers:

The most ancient, but relevant fact in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the numbers game. Whoever is the most fruitful and multiplying, wins. Israel realizes that within a few years – 4 to 8 by most counts – the Israelis in Israel will be outnumbered by Palestinians and Arabs.

This is why Sharon and even the most radically conservative members of his government support the formation of a Palestinian state. It’s also why their parliament passed today what can only be understood as a racist law under which Palestinians who marry Israelis will be denied citizenship (while others who marry Israelis will face no such restriction). …

This is also an major reason why Palestinian militants seek to slow down the peace process. The longer it takes, the less it will matter whether Israel accepts a Palestinian state. It will simply become one….

3 responses to “Numbers”

  1. Jerry in Jersey Avatar
    Jerry in Jersey

    And Jeff Jarvis finds nothing negative to say about this “numbers” excuse?

  2. Yehudit Avatar
    Yehudit

    The last time Jews as a minority in Middle East countries were treated well was for a few hundred years before the Reconquista. The Palestinians – like other Arabs – have no history of democratic liberal self-government, but plenty of history of violent thuggish corrupt pseudo-government. It would be blindingly stupid for Jews to allow themsleves to be ruled by an Arab majority.
    Given the multiracial nature of Israeli society, and that Jews are not a race, and that almost all the Palestinians in question want to marry Israeli Arabs, not Jews (in other words, their own people) (most of whose DNA is indistinguishable from most Jews’), and that there are Arab-Jewish marriages in Israel – “racist” is just a buzzword here. I’m surprised a conscientious reporter like Jeff would use it in this context.
    Israel is trying to keep people who have a track record of horrendous terrorism from using marriage as a back-door way of immigrating to the country they are trying to destroy. This is discriminatory, it is “profiling,” because some innocent Palestinians are punished by it. But it is understandable, and it isn’t “racist.”
    Gee, I wonder why the Israeli partner doesn’t just want to go and live in the territories . . .
    I’m still waiting for even a fraction of this outrage to be aimed at all the Arab nations who for decades haven’t allowed Palestinians to become citizens at all (i.e. all of them but Jordan and Israel).

  3. Yehudit Avatar
    Yehudit

    Damian Penny has some sensible comments on this, but his permalinks aren’t working right now so here’s a quote:
    “. . . might this new law have something to do with the fact that Israel and the Palestinians have effectively been at war for the past three years? Something tells me it wasn’t easy for a Briton to bring his new German wife to the UK between 1939 and 1945.
    For that matter, if an Israeli marries a person from, say, Saudi Arabia, would he or she gain the right to live in Saudi Arabia? I think you know the answer to that one. But I don’t expect to see any front-page articles in the Independent about it.
    I agree that the new law causes serious hardship for many couples. But even B’Tselem, a far-left Israeli peace group, admits that 20 Palestinians have gained Israeli citizenship in this fashion, and then took part in terror attacks. They say it’s not a big deal, because it’s “only” 20 out of approximately 100,000 Palestinians who’ve come to Israel in this manner since 1993. I think it is a big deal. (And I’ll bet you any money almost all of these attacks have come since 2000, when the latest intifada was launched.)”