A Danger that is not Real

Michael Anbar Ph.D.

We have enough real problems to worry about, let us stop worrying about a non-problem. Over the years I have heard on many occasions deep concern about the danger to Israel from its Arab minority. Israel faces many dangers, but this is not one of them. True, most Israelis are upset with the nasty militancy of some of the Arab MKs (Members of the Knesset) who have been using their parliamentary immunity to promote a seditious agenda. Some of these MKs, who seem to take their orders from Arafat and Assad, openly support Arab anti-Jewish terrorism and advocate the eradication of the State of Israel.  Israelis also remember the riots instigated by the PLO at the start of the current Intefada in several Arab towns, which resulted in the death of quite a few violent demonstrators.

Those riots, that took place during the tenure of Barak’s Labor government, left a bitter taste in both Israeli Arab and Jewish communities. The Israeli Jews were left with an impression that Arafat controls also the Israeli Arabs.  That impression was wrong. Barak’s unbelievable surrender to Arafat demands signaled to the Israeli Muslims that Arafat might eventually win and Israel will be erased from the map of the Middle East. Therefore, they rioted against Israel so as to be on the winner’s side and not be regarded as traitors. The fact is that no such riots were repeated once Sharon took office. It was not the fear that Sharon will take harsh measures against dissident Muslims but the realization that Arafat has little chance to dislodge Israel with a strong leader, that calmed down even the Islamist activists among Israeli Muslims.

Then there is the well-known “demographic bomb” scare, namely that the Israeli Arabs will soon outnumber the Israeli Jews and convert the Jewish homeland into another Arab country (Arafat’s infamous dream). Taking a closer look at these concerns we will see that those fears are unjustified. They remind us of Pharaoh’s “The people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we…” (Exodus 1:9). While being ethically and politically objectionable, these fears only add unneeded fuel to the conflict. But before we look at the demographic facts we must consider the motivation of the Israeli politicians who generated that scare. These are people the same people who engineered the Oslo debacle and helped Arafat to subjugate the Palestinians. To cover up that catastrophic political blunder they want now to stampede Israel into surrender to Arafat demands, using the “demographic bomb” scare as a justification. 

             While observing utterly unacceptable behavior of Arab MKs, we have seen in the last few months also a number of Jewish MKs, a past Israeli minister, a past Speaker of Knesset, as well as other leftist Jewish ex-officials behaving in a similar disgraceful manner. At a time of an existential war, these politicians openly accepted monetary support from adversaries of the Jewish state in order to undermine its democratic structure and besmirch the image of Israeli society. (See “An Open Letter to MK Avraham Burg”) Moreover, these Jewish officials tried to impose on the State of Israel policies that would have deprived the Jewish people of their historical rights to the their ancient homeland and rendered Israel, their own country, vulnerable to eventual destruction by Arabs. These Jewish politicians were, possibly inadvertently, meeting in effect the same objectives advocated by the militant, seditious Arab MKs.

In addition, a number of Jews -- not Arabs -- have been trying to influence Israeli soldiers to desert the IDF or to refuse to serve in the reserves so as to weaken the ability of the Jewish state to defend itself or at least demoralize the Israeli army. All these actions by Jewish Israeli citizens in time of war cannot be regarded as political dissent in a democratic society but as sheer subversion. Yet, neither the Arab militant MKs nor the much larger number of those Jewish MKs and their politically affiliated officials were brought to justice for sedition. Why?

Before we try to answer this question, let us take a closer look at the Israeli Arab population. For one, Israeli Arabs are not a monolithic group – they include the Bedouin community, which suffered proportionally more IDF war casualties than the Jewish community, the large Druze community whose sons serve in the IDF like the Bedouins and like members of the small Circassian community; then there is the large Christian Arabs community (Greek Orthodox and Catholics) in addition to the Arab Muslim community, mostly Sunni Muslims, who constitute about 75% of the Israeli ethnic Arab minority.  Most Israeli Arabs, including many of the Sunnis, prefer to live in democratic Israel rather than under oppressive despotic Islamic rule, which often persecutes non-Muslim Arab minorities.

Surprisingly, the Israeli government has been exempting Israeli Arab, including Arab Christians, from military or other national service duties, because of concerns about their loyalty to the state. At the same time they seem to have trusted Yassir Arafat, an avowed terrorist leader. Moreover, they armed and trained members of Fatah (“conquest” in Arabic) movement, a brazen, Muslim terrorist organization, which has declared the conquest of the Jewish state as its main political goal.  Those terrorists led and funded by Arafat, spearhead the ongoing indiscriminate murder of Israelis.  In other words, as stated earlier, the Oslo accords have been a major political blunder.

It is also noteworthy that just a handful of ideologically motivated Israeli Muslim Arabs have been apprehended as accomplices of extramural Muslim terrorists.  Their number is comparable to the number of ideologically motivated Israeli Jews apprehended for terrorist activities against Arabs.  In brief, to the chagrin of the Islamists and Arab nationalists, the overwhelming majority of Israeli Arab citizens are loyal to the state they live in. In view of this, how can one explain the militancy of the Arab MKs who are supposed to represent the Israeli Arab minority?

The answer is simple. Just like the political leaders in the rest of the Arab world, most Israeli Arab politicians are corrupt and do not represent the political will of their constituents. Moreover, if corrupt Jewish politicians have been trying to undermine the legitimacy of their own homeland, endangering the very existence of their own nation, why should Israeli Arab politicians behave differently?

Why do we have this problem and what can be done about it?

Israel does not have a constitution. A constitution would forbid and severely punish or expel any citizen who tries to deny or undermine the very existence of the Jewish state. When that state was established on May 15, 1948, seven Arab countries that tried to eradicate it immediately attacked it militarily.  Writing and adopting a national constitution was far from being a high priority in those critical days. Later on, this task has been deferred because of the likely political squabble about the extent of inclusion of Jewish religious laws without interfering with religious freedom of all the citizens (an intrinsic feature of Western democracy, like other personal freedoms). Without a constitution Israel has a representative government that lacks the necessary legal tools to guarantee the integrity and loyalty of its political leaders, Jews and non-Jews alike.  This omission or neglect is now coming to bite. The State of Israel must have a constitution – a set of premises that cannot be altered by the legislature, and therefore immune from expedient political constellations.

Israel’s constitution must state that: 1. The Land of Israel is the ancient homeland of the Jewish people (not just a Jewish state). 2. Hebrew is its official language. 3. The Zionist flag is its national flag. And 4. The 119 years old Zionist anthem is Israel’s national anthem.

Israel’s constitution should also state that because the State of Israel is the only sovereign state of the Jewish nation, any member of this nation (“Who is a Jew?” has been a major stumbling block in formulating a constitution) who wishes to immigrate to Israel and is potentially a refugee from ethnic and/or religious persecution, has therefore the right to be admitted as an immigrant (unless proven to be a fugitive felon). This preference of Jews over non-Jews is be utterly justified in view of the persecution of Jews in different parts of the world; it is not different from American immigration law concerning political or religious refugees. The absorption of more than 700,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries by Israel after 1948 fully justifies this constitutional premise. Obviously, just like the US, Israel is going to deny entry to people bound on the destruction of the Jewish state. All other potential immigrants to Israel would be treated equally by the same set of objective criteria.

Anyone, Jew or non-Jew, who refuses to accept these principles and swear allegiance to Israel’s constitution, could not become its citizen and be allowed to participate in its democratic political processes. Jews or Arabs who refuse for any reason to agree to these premises could live in Israel as alien residents without voting rights. Citizens who try to undermine the constitution and what it stands for should, after due process, lose their citizenship and possibly be expelled from the country for good.  This might eliminate or at least minimize gross political corruption, which is rampant today.

On the other hand, all citizens of the State of Israel, irrespective of their temporary or permanent residence, should have voting rights.  In other words, Israel, like most democracies, must institute absentee voting for citizens who happen to be out of the country on Election Day for whatever reason.  Israel could require each Israeli citizen in good standing who resides abroad to visit the homeland at least once in 10 years; this could also help Israeli economy.

These changes would allow the State of Israel to maintain a Western democratic regime, like that in The UK, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Italy, France, multi-religious Germany, and even in multiethnic-multilingual Switzerland or Belgium, or in the multicultural United States of America and Canada. Each of these countries has ethnic and religious minorities with unmitigated political rights, each maintaining its own traditional cultural identity and political structure in face of demographic changes.

Coming back to the “demographic bomb” scare, the Muslim minority in Israel comprises today less than 15% of the citizenry. Since the Arab population in Israel doubled in the last 50 years its growth rate (including illegal non-Jewish immigration) has been 1.4% per year. This is exactly equal to the current average natural growth rate of the whole population of the State of Israel (US CIA World Fact-book 2003/ Israel/people). This percentage would remain therefore remain constant. However, even if the natural birthrate of the Israeli Muslims would increase miraculously to 3.3% (the natural growth rate in the West Bank territory – again, CIA Fact-book 2003), their percentage in the Israeli population would increase from 15% to 20% in 20 years; this would be still far from becoming a demographic threat to the Jewish majority. Assuming that Israel absorbs one million additional Palestinian Arab citizens (95% Muslims) as a result of annexation of Judea and Samaria (see “Rationale of an Alternative”), the percentage of Muslim citizens would still be less than 25% and using the same “worse case scenario” assumptions they would constitute less than 33% of the electorate. If absentee ballot was implemented it can be shown that under “worse case scenario” assumptions, the percentage of all Muslim constituents would 20 years from now be less than 28% (less than 26% Sunnis).

It is very likely that the West will defeat militant Islamism within the next 20 years and Islam be reformed to become tolerant of Western culture. Then the size of the Muslim minority in Israel would become politically insignificant. Since the social status of Israeli Muslims is rapidly changing, as reflected by the large number of Arab students in Israeli universities, and if extramural Islamistic religious incitement will be curbed or eliminated, there is also no reason to believe that all Israeli Muslims will form a militant Islamic, or Arab nationalistic, anti-Jewish political bloc.

In summary, the worry about the potential danger to Israel from its current Arab citizens is utterly unfounded (unless Israel shows incredible political and military weakness that forecast its imminent demise). Even if another million Arabs who live in the territories chose to become Israeli citizens who do recognize Israel as the historical homeland of the Jewish people, there is no reason for a “demographic bomb” scare. On the contrary, demonstrating that a sizable Arab minority, with a variety of religious persuasions, can be fully integrated – socially, economically and politically -- in the Jewish democratic state, which keeps its national identity, could become a model. It could be a model for Muslim countries with sizable ethnic and religious minorities, as Iraq is expected to become in the foreseeable future.  It could also serve as a model for European countries with large Muslim minorities.

December 21, 2003