May 21, 2003
THE ULTIMATE WELFARE STATE
The delusional American vision (Israel Harel, Ha'aretz, 5/21/2003)Let us assume that for the sake of realizing Bush's vision Israel will uproot the settlements and withdraw to the June 4, 1967 lines. The area of the Palestinian state would then be some 5,500 square kilometers - 5,210 sq.km. in Judea and Samaria and 380 in the Gaza Strip. In that small area there are about 3.2 million people. That's just over 580 people per sq.km....
In the Gaza Strip, for example, there are now 1.25 million people living in 376 sq.km. or 3,300 per sq.km. The natural increase in Gaza, according to statistics compiled by the World Bank, is the highest in the world - about 7 children per family. The population of the strip, according to those same statistics, will double in another 17 years. This means that in 2020 this piece of land, which is smaller than some ranches in Texas, Wyoming or North Dakota, will be home to 2.5 million people, or 6,600 persons per sq.km.
Who will be able to provide housing, health, education or sewage - never mind jobs - for these overcrowded, unemployed, hungry and frustrated millions?...
In 2020 Judea and Samaria will have more than 3 million inhabitants ...
[C]lose to 75 percent of Gaza's population and about 70 percent of the population of Judea and Samaria are under the age of 20 ...
There is no doubt that the Palestinians, and not just so that their state will be viable, will not and cannot make do with a tiny area of 5,500 square kilometers. If they are not given additional land, such as in Sinai or on the other side of the Jordan river, they will target their frustration on Israel. Even after a full withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza, [Israel] will continue to control 80 percent of the land the Palestinians view as their homeland. Then, with the status of a state in the full sense of international law, they will renew their bloody war. That is the outcome we may expect from the American president's vision.
One of the untold stories of the Palestinian catastrophe is the corrupting effects of their dependency on international welfare. For decades in Gaza and in the refugee camps of the West Bank, Palestinians have had no real economy, and been supported by international aid. The result of welfare dependency is social atomization, selfishness, and a general inability and unwillingness to cooperate with or serve others. And a favorite way to relieve the tedium is babymaking -- creating children whom others will support.
A solution to the Palestinian problem is difficult because some of the key moral supports for civil society are missing. The terrorists can be defeated; but the challenge of building a civil Palestinian society in the wake of Arafat and the UN will be great.
Mr. Harel asks "who will provide for these millions?" He should rather ask how they can be become productive members of a voluntaristic economy.
Mr. Harel, though he supposes himself to be making a case against Palestinian statehood, actually makes a strong argument for Orrin's recommendation: a unilateral Israeli declaration of Palestinian statehood. Does Israel really want to maintain some sort of responsibility for 5.5 million Palestinians, 70% of them children?
Mr. Harel makes a common mistake -- treating Palestinian sentiment as inevitable and immutable. In truth, Israel has given the Palestinians no attractive reasons to change their sentiments: Palestinian terror has never proven costly, it has even been rewarded with concessions; and Palestinian gentleness has not been rewarded. Israel has to become tougher against terror and tyranny, and those who support terror and tyranny. If Israel maintains its sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza, then it has to protect ordinary Palestinians and create space for civil associations and independent views, by defending ordinary Palestinians and punishing perpetrators of crimes like this, just as it would if the victims were Israelis. And if Israel prefers to create a Palestinian state, and if that state wages war via terror, Israel must lose its qualms about responding with deadly force.
As for the U.S., we could make a positive contribution just by pushing to reduce international aid to the Palestinians. Aid should be conditioned on an end to terror; and we should have a long-term goal of weaning Palestinians from international aid entirely. This is a time for "tough love," not sentimentality.