Tsvi Bisk: Israel – How to Respond A strategy of the indirect approach
It is infuriating. One is tempted to succumb to unrestrained anger and resentment at the endless distortions of truth and reality. “Feminists for Palestine” only days after the mass rapes and genital mutilations of Jewish women. The “Me Too” movement and women’s organizations disregard the atrocity. The snide contempt of the UN rapporteur on women’s rights who previously “concluded” that male violence against women in Palestinian society was Israel’s fault. Sociopaths like Roger Waters provided media platforms to claim that October 7th never even happened. “Queers for Palestine” ignorant of or indifferent to the discrimination and violence Gays face in Palestinian society, while willing to destroy careers for misgendering or using the wrong pronoun. The mindless chanting “from the river to the sea” without being able to define which river and which sea.
More ominous has been the Orwellian perversion of the very meaning of words. Accusations of “genocide” when the Gazan population has actually increased during the war. Targeting women and children on the one hand (despite the lowest civilian to combatant ratio in the history of warfare) and “ethnic cleansing” on the other hand, when Israel warns civilians to move before an attack. An “open air prison” on the one hand and “ethnic cleansing” on the other when we suggest these so-called “incarcerated” be given sanctuary in other countries. Zionism, a “settler colonial enterprise” without specifying what imperial metropole Zionism was supposed to have represented. And if so, why did 6 million Jews die? Wouldn’t it have been more sensible for the imperialist power that Zionism supposedly represented to move all the Jews to Israel rather than let them be murdered?
Especially annoying are those politically obsequious Jews, ever compliant with the winds of academic fashion, actually justifying the event as an act of legitimate resistance. We also have intellectually lazy “progressives” condemning Israel’s “disproportionate” response (never specifying what would be proportionate) as well as the namby-pamby response of universities to overt and covert antisemitism. The passive-aggressive media coverage doesn’t do one’s mood much good either.
While temptation to submit to outrage is overwhelming, self-righteous indignation is a waste of energy. We must take the long view and initiate policies and programs that over the next 20-30 years result in the ultimate total grand strategic victory, rather than delude ourselves that we can achieve total operational victory at this stage of the game and admit we have lost the short term PR battle.
I suggest we initiate a long-term Zionist policy that emulates Massachusetts, an American state comparable to Israel in area and population. Over 25% of Massachusetts’ GDP is provided by universities and hospitals, generating hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs. 80,000 foreign students are enrolled in their universities compared to 18,000 in Israel. Imagine if American billionaire hedge fund manager William Ackman, rather than publicly raging against the vapid Harvard University response to campus antisemitism, diverted his Harvard contribution to Reichman University’s English language academic programs, providing alternatives for Diaspora Jewish students and serving as a foundation for greatly expanding Israel’s international university programs for the developing world. Israel might copy Qatar’s Education City, which houses satellite campuses of universities like Carnegie Mellon, Texas A&M, Georgetown, and Northwestern, serving students from over 50 countries. We could absorb thousands of Jewish academics (Israelis, returning Israelis and Olim), while providing thousands of well-paying ancillary jobs. Unlike Qatar, which has to spend billions to import thousands of academics and support staff, Israel has these human resources at its fingertips, and our Education City could generate value from tuition and private contributions rather than consume value.
The same strategy could be implemented in the health sector. The recent $125 million donation to Tel Aviv University’s Medical School from Mr. Jonathan Gray and his wife Mindy is a good example of a proper response. Other wealthy Jews could incentivize the Mayo, Houston and Cleveland clinics to open branches in Israel. An international Health City absorbing thousands of Jewish and returning Israeli medical staff and providing thousands of well-paying ancillary jobs. Israel becoming a world center for education and health would also be a Hasbara triumph of the first order.
Miriam Adelson might be persuaded to redirect her massive philanthropic assets to programs dedicated to educating Arab women in the West Bank. Yassir Arafat once famously declared that the Palestinian uterus was his greatest weapon. But we know that educating women drives the birthrate down. The overall birth rate per Israeli Arab women in 2022 was 2.75, down from over 7 in 1970. For Muslim women, it was 2.92, followed by Druze (1.85) and Christian women (1.62). The Jewish non-Haredi birthrate is 2.4. Palestinian fertility in the territories has also been steadily decreasing (even without incentives), from 4.10 per woman in 2012 to 3.30 in 2022. Already, as of 2024, fewer babies are being born amongst Palestinian West Bankers than in Israel. If we give up the stupid desire to reoccupy Gaza the Jewish uterus will eventually triumph over the Palestinian uterus. Especially if we implement other discreet programs providing the means to help the poorest Palestinians emigrate for a better life. This could drive population growth to zero, thus demilitarizing the Palestinian Uterus and depriving them of their demographic delusion.
For the ordinary Jewish giver, I suggest creating an Israeli Credits Bank by which instead of donating money to one’s favorite non-Jewish charity (hospital or college) one would donate the equivalent in value of Israeli credits by which the recipient could purchase Israeli goods and services: pharmaceuticals, medical instruments, computer hardware and software, water management, alternative energy, digital services, food and snacks etc.
This would be “Leveraging the Jewish philanthropic dollar” for maximum effect. American Jewish giving presently consists of 20% to Jewish and Israeli causes and 80% to non-Jewish causes. By donating Israeli credits you would be giving 100% to Jewish causes and 100% to non-Jewish causes. It would drive the BDS people crazy, which, of course, is an added benefit.
This might be a project that the President of Israel could constitutionally undertake. Using his bully pulpit to call for a new type of Israel-Diaspora relationship based on the above and actively promoting it.
Tsvi Bisk’s most recent book, available on Amazon, is Cosmodeism: A Worldview for the Space-Age
