This piece by Tsvi Bisk was a letter to the editor at the Jerusalem Post. It was not published because of length but we thought it was worth the airing.
Larry Derfner’s method of arguing his case is reflective of a disease that infects both the Left and the Right – when comparing apples with apples does not re-enforce your axiomatic prejudices, you can always revert to comparing apples with oranges! The Right does it when equating the Jewish settlement in Hebron today to that of the 1920s and 30s. Comparing a small ghetto of defenseless religious Jews unprotected by a self-determined sovereign power to that of a militant community armed to the teeth and protected by a Jewish sovereign power and the most powerful army in the Middle East is an ‘apples with oranges’ comparison. The Left (à la Derfner) does it a bit differently.
When the numbers Derfner used to compare Gaza’s population density to that of Manhattan (apples to apples) were shown to be false he countered by comparing the Jabaliya refugee camp to Manhattan (apples with oranges). The main thing being to prove that Gaza is the densest place on earth and that this density inhibits development. Of course he is wrong on both counts: Gaza is far from being the densest place on earth and all empirical research shows that density does not inhibit but rather facilitates development. Take Singapore as an example. Gaza is two thirds the land area of Singapore with less than half the population. Singapore has a significantly higher population density than Gaza and one of the highest per capita standards of living in the world.
An ‘apples with apples’ argument would have compared Jabaliya with Spanish Harlem, London’s East End or B’nai Brak (or even Ramat Aviv – upscale to be sure but densely populated in the extreme).
Manhattan contains Central Park and huge areas of real estate devoted solely to office space. A more honest ‘apples with oranges’ argument would have compared the population density of Jabaliya with that of Manhattan at noon on a work day (4 million) rather than the number of actual residents (1.5 million). Manhattan, by the way, is about one eighth the area of Gaza.
This kind of honesty would of course have fatally damaged Derfner’s underlying thesis – that we Israelis are completely responsible for every aspect of Palestinian suffering. This thesis exposes the postmodern Left’s soft racism of low (or no) expectations of “non-European” peoples – which assumes that non-Europeans are so morally and intellectually retarded that it is really bad taste to expect them to conform to a universal standard of thought and behavior.
I cannot deny that Israeli stupidity, insensitivity and inability to embrace the essential humanity of the Palestinians play a very major role in the plight of the Palestinians. Indeed, I believe that the post 1967 settlement project and the settlement sub-culture it has engendered (which has hijacked Zionist and Jewish discourse for the past 40 years) has not only caused great injustice to the Palestinian people it has also become a major existential threat to Israel and subsequently to the Jewish people. It has not only eroded the moral self-confidence of a large segment of Israeli and Jewish public opinion, it has consumed concrete resources and assets better spent on the economic, social, educational and military infrastructure of the Jewish state.
There is no question that since 1967 one of Zionism’s “achievements” has been to disprove the racist canard that the Jews are smarter than other people. Give us power and we are capable of being just as stupid as the “nations”. But if we Jews have been dumb, then a universal standard of judgment must conclude that the Palestinians have been even dumber.
Suffering and victim hood cannot be excuses for irrational behavior or refusal to recognize the constraints of reality. Indeed they demand an even greater precision of thought and action – of the kind that characterized Zionist leadership up until 1967. I am not a soft racist. I demand from the Palestinians the same standards of rationality, recognition of constraints and precision of thought and action that I demand from my own people. Unfortunately, as Abba Eban noted “the Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.
The last opportunity they missed was the disengagement from Gaza. Instead of devoting all their energies to building up the infrastructure for their future state, they intensified their firing of rockets at Israel – a completely irrational act, if building a state and improving the lot of your citizens is the aim. Statehood is now further out of reach than it was three years ago and the standard of living of Gaza’s residents now resembles that of sub-Saharan Africa.
What could they have done instead?
- Declared their aim to be the Singapore of the Mediterranean.
- Enlisted western help to achieve this aim: building a modern port, desalinization plants and other infrastructure.
- Negotiated a free trade agreement with Israel
- Requested trade parity with the European Union
- Pressured Israel to fulfill its Annapolis obligations regarding check points in the West Bank based on the formula “for every month of quiet 5-10 checkpoints will be dismantled”. Three years into this new reality and half the checkpoints (almost all the north to south and even some of the east to west) would have been dismantled).
If such a policy had been followed, Gaza would be in the throes of a 10-15% yearly economic growth rate with the standard of living of its citizens greatly improved. West Bank residents would also have improved their quality of life as well as their standard of living. The psychological framework of the dispute would have been much more favorable – making Israeli public opinion more amenable to far-reaching compromises.
This would have been the rational response to Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza. Instead a barrage of Kassam rockets ensued. Result? A level of poverty unprecedented even for Gaza; even more restrictions on the Palestinians in the West Bank; Israeli public opinion disgusted and disbelieving in any possibility for peace; an Israeli electorate moving sharply to the right; the two-state solution a slogan, and despite the temporary “enthusiasm” of European intellectualists and professional humanitarians for the suffering of the Gazans as a result of Israel’s incursion, an ever-increasing boredom with the Palestinian cause in Europe and the Arab world.
Yes, we Jews might be dumb, but the Palestinians have proven to be even dumber.
Tsvi Bisk is an American-Israeli futurist, social researcher and strategy planning consultant. He is author of The Optimistic Jew: A Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century
