The Zionist Entity’s Path to Demise

On the contrary, what is prevalent these days is the celebrating of the normalization processes, using various possible methods, which are very diverse, including, for example, but not limited to: employing opportunistic artists and “public figures”. “Abrahamic” theorizations are trying to invent a civilizational-cultural-religious basis for coexistence with the Zionist Entity. Political theorizations are trying to rearrange enemies and friends in the Arab mind by placing Iran or Turkey, or both, in place of “Israel” as the main enemy of the Arabs. “Economic” theorizations are promising of rivers of milk and honey in the event of normalization. Blind “humanistic” and “cultural” theorizations about “the aesthetics of peace” and about “plurality of identities”, and so on.

It is understood, of course, why it is not possible to hear a single word in the normalizers’ media about any serious problem the Entity is experiencing, let alone something along the lines of an existential threat to the Entity and its continuity. The basic excuse used by the normalizers is that “Israel” is an existing, continuous, strong, developed, and so on reality. Therefore, realism requires reaching normalization with it sooner or later.

A “Demographic” Threat

What we are discussing, then, is not a discussion going on in the Arab media, but rather a discussion of a wave of analyses and articles all over the “Israeli” media, and especially in research centers, which began to expand about two years ago. That is, with the beginning of the intractable government crisis that continues until now, which is manifesting in the instability of any government formation for more than six months on average.

Among those articles, the opinion piece written by Yuval Diskin, the former head of the Shin Bet security service or “Shabak” (which is one of the three “Israeli” security services besides the Mossad and Aman), was striking. The article was published in Hebrew in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on February 19, and Russia Today provided a translation (in Arabic) of a small part of the article.

The title of the article is “This way, we will not have a country left”; its author discusses what he calls an internal, existential threat to the continuation of “Israel”.

The author begins his article by saying: “I am not talking about the Iranian nuclear threat, Hezbollah missiles, or radical fundamentalist Islam. I am talking about the demographic, social and economic trends that are already changing the essence of the state and are destined to endanger its existence in one generation”.

He then clarifies what he means by focusing on the shift in population proportions resulting from the extreme difference in fertility rates between population groups that live alongside each other, while at the same time isolated from each other. The discussion is not about the Arabs on the one hand and Jews on the other, (this contradiction is not the most acute in the opinion of the author compared to the contradictions among the Jews themselves, whether with their ethnic differences or the differences of their political and sectarian affiliations).

The author diagnoses the “existential threat” by saying that, within the next 30 to 40 years, half of the population will be made up of two groups: Arabs and Haredim (Haredim are ultra-Orthodox Jews who live dependent on everyone, as they are completely devoted to religious activity and do not participate in economic activity, earning their livelihood through government aid, are known to have a very low education rate, and the highest birth rate, as the fertility rate among them in 2018, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, reached 7.1 children per family, compared to an average of fewer than 4 among the remaining groups).

An “Economic-Social” Threat

The danger of the Haredi phenomenon occupies a major position in the totality of the existential wave of panic to which we are referring. For example, Dan Ben-David, the professor at Tel Aviv University, an economist and head of the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research, had published a study in Yedioth Ahronoth also, on 8 September 2019, under the title: “Demographics and illusions: the election is about whether Israel will exist in 2 generations”.

In his study, which is full of statistics and figures, Ben-David begins to present his topic based on the educational level of children, stressing that the statistics indicate that half of the children in “Israel” receive a “third world education”, according to his expressions, meaning backward education. At the same time, “Israel” still considers itself as belonging to the First World, which is what Ben David describes by saying: “We live in a movie and feed on illusions”.

He further supports his argument with a set of statistics, including an interesting one about “labor productivity”, that is, the value of production divided by production time. About labor productivity in “Israel”, he says: “the gap between the leading countries in the G7 group (USA, England, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada) and ‘Israel’ has more than tripled in the last 40 years”.

Whether the discussion is about the level of education or the level of productivity, the Haredim are the common denominator. However, the problem certainly is not confined to them. Rather, it goes beyond that to what is more fundamental, that is, to the extent of class inequality and racial discrimination, which does not befall the Palestinians alone – even if they are always the most vulnerable to persecution – but rather provides an image of the quasi-military hierarchy of the many ethnicities within the Entity.

Furthermore, Ben-David points to a possibility that he deems viable, a possibility in which the most pessimistic scenarios (from the Entity’s point of view) become rosy scenarios!

The possibility is that the “other part” of the settlers – that is, if we leave the Haredim aside, and the Palestinians of course, and focus on the part belonging to the First World in terms of educational level, as well as its participation in economic and scientific activity – this “other part”, and with the rise in the amount of economic and security pressures, can very simply carry its luggage and move permanently to the West. This is a phenomenon that has already started, and the numbers are constantly increasing. Here we can understand why the former Shin Bet chief indicated the danger inherent in “Most of the economic and military burden will soon be borne by only 30% of the public in Israel. That way this company will not survive – social or security”. The 30% here are what we called the “other part”.

Going back to Ben-David, he assesses the likelihood that these people will emigrate outside the Zionist Entity by saying: “If a critical mass of them (that is, from the “other part” or 30%) decides to leave, the negative processes that we can see within 40 years will happen at the speed of jet engines”. In other words, talking about an existential danger after a generation or two, will turn into an existential danger after a few years!

A Wider Angle

The internal aspects that carry existential threats to the Zionist Entity are undoubtedly very important aspects. However, the international dimension of “Israel” is to a large extent an internal dimension as well.

The Zionist Entity, since its occupation of Palestine, has been part of a broader project that is a colonial one extending from the traditional colonial form to the modern form, and always as a primarily direct military tool.

The retreat in the Western project as a whole necessarily implies a retreat in the Zionist project in general, and the “Israel” project in particular. It might be an exaggeration even to use the word project to describe “Israel”, as according to the words of Yuval Diskin himself: “This company will not survive – social or security”.

This may help us understand the statement of the new US Secretary of State, on February 22, in which he said: “Washington believes the two-state solution is the best way to ensure ‘Israel’s’ future”. This means that the task of ensuring the future of “Israel” is a task put on the table for discussion and action, which also means that this future is indeed threatened.

(Arabic Version)