A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews.

 
Arthur Hertzberg in Haaretz

In a column in today's Haaretz, Arthur Hertzberg displays typical intellectual dishonesty and/or the sheer ignorance of the anti-settlement Left when he writes:

"In the last decade, since the supposed agreement in Oslo to end settlements in order to move toward making peace, the Jewish population in the West Bank and Gaza has doubled! By no stretch of imagination can this be ascribed to natural increase; the Israeli birthrate of less than three per family would simply not produce such an increase within ten years.

"Natan Sharansky, the minister of Diaspora affairs, has recently been in and out of the United State making speeches attacking Jewish students on campus and Jewish professors for not standing up for Israel. Sharansky attributed this failure to a lack of information on their part and he proposes that this be corrected through better Zionist education. But in what Zionism does he intend to educate these students and faculty members? Does he propose to teach them his own Zionism, in which he went home after a recent tour of some American universities to announce that, contrary to a promise that Israel had made to the American government, he was going to finance the construction of 650 new apartments on the West Bank in order to "thicken" the Jewish presence in some of the settlements?

"I have no doubt that Natan Sharansky knows that there are apartments going begging right now in some of those places."

First, Oslo never required an "end" to settlements, or even a settlement freeze. Further, does Hertzberg really think that the average Israeli birthrate applies to the mostly religious residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza? If so, then I suggest he visit the schools in any of the communities in those areas. Suffice to say that the families in those areas average a lot more than 3 children.

Hertzberg's criticism of the construction of new apartments in Judea and Samaria when there are empty houses in settlements sounds sensical, but it's not. The new construction is taking place in Givat Ze'ev, Maaleh Adumin, Ariel, Karnei Shomron and Beitar Illit, all of which are flourishing, and are located in areas most Israelis want and expect to retain. The empty homes are in isolated settlements, mainly in the northern West Bank.
posted on 1/07/2004