Astounding Facts Most People Don’t Know About Israel: 6     

The impact of Israel on the health of Palestinian Arabs has been overwhelmingly positive

The other day I happened to tune in to an earnest but dull discussion on the UK health service on BBC radio. I was about to switch off when a medical expert offered this opinion: “How can I tell if someone is committed to evidence? When they’re willing to change their minds.” I punched the air in agreement.

We should all be open to changing our minds if the evidence requires it of us. Sometimes it’s a counter-intuitive, profoundly painful process – like having to bid farewell to an old friend or lover. That’s why many people are extremely reluctant to do it. And that’s why “conventional wisdom” is so often misleading or just plain wrong. Nowhere is this more manifest than in the arguments that rage around Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians. 

It’s axiomatic that any conflict between two groups of people is a bad thing and especially for the weaker side. As the Palestinians are unarguably weaker than Israel, as we are constantly reminded, the impact of the latter on the former must inevitably be highly toxic. Take the example of health.

In 2009 Rita Giacaman, Professor of Public Health at Bir Zeit University, wrote the following in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet:

“Between 1967 and 1993, health services for Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory were neglected and starved of funds by the Israeli military administration, with shortages of staff, hospital beds, medications, and essential and specialised services, forcing Palestinians to depend on health services in Israel.”

That sounded a little harsh to me at the time but probably not a million miles (I surmised) from the truth. 

Here’s what Dr Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet had to say in the same year:

“The people of the Palestinian territory matter, most importantly, because their lives and communities are continuing to experience an occupation that has produced chronic de-development for nearly four million people over many decades.”

Sounds reasonable? I thought so too. The occupation (or “occupation” if you’re more comfortable with quotation marks), even if not Israel’s fault, is bound to have negative effects on Palestinian health. That’s surely an uncontroversial statement. Except for one problem: it’s untrue. Horton’s allegation was a complete falsehood, just as was the Giacaman pronouncement.

Hold on, that’s ridiculous. How could a military occupation be anything but damaging on the health of the people under the thumb of the occupier?  

Well, I have news. In this particular case, Israel’s presence in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem over the period 1967 to 1994 turned out to be enormously beneficial to Palestinian health. I know this because a few years ago I researched the subject at the request of Professor Alan Johnson, the editor of the online Fathom magazine. I embarked on the exercise with a genuinely open mind. After all, my professional integrity was on the line. If Israeli policy was responsible for eroding Palestinian health, I would be duty bound to acknowledge and report it. 

If you have the time and inclination to read the full article, there’s a link at the foot of this blog. Alternatively, let me save you the trouble of wading through the paper’s numerous tables and graphs. 

Here’s a summary of what I discovered.

“Rapid and largely sustained improvements in the health status of Palestinians residing in West Bank and Gaza – as measured by infant mortality rates, life expectancy, immunisation coverage and many other indicators – coincided with the period of Israeli civil responsibility of West Bank and Gaza by Israel from 1967 to 1994.”

Just digest that sentence for a moment. Israel’s presence in the West Bank and Gaza strip from 1967 onwards produced rapid and largely sustained improvements in the health status of Palestinians. That conclusion was entirely evidence-based and had nothing to do with my preconceived ideas (that, let me reiterate, tended towards accepting the notion that occupation – any occupation – is bad for your health). 

Here are a few specific examples of my discoveries: infant mortality (a widely used indicator of the state of a population’s health) tumbled by over 80% over the study period; immunisation rates for diseases such as mumps and measles rose to over 90%; running water and electricity in Palestinian homes became the norm rather than the exception; healthcare facilities, including hospitals and community clinics, were modernised and improved beyond recognition. 

My main conclusions, based on the data, were two-fold. First, the claim that Israel systematically harmed Palestinian health/care post-1967 was not supported by the epidemiological evidence. Second, the opposite was the case: Israel substantially improved Palestinian public health from 1967 onwards as a result of the implementation of a wide range of measures that involved the allocation of considerable organisational, political and financial resources. 

When the Palestinian Authority took over full responsibility for the health of these territories in 1994, many of the Israeli public health measures were sustained, at least in part. Unfortunately, both the Second Intifada that started in 2000 and the violent Hamas takeover of Gaza of 2007 were unhelpful (to put it mildly) and many of the health statistics began to go into reverse.  

The article was published in 2014. So far, not one of Israel’s numerous critics has been able to refute any of my findings. There’s a good reason: the data are unequivocal.

The editor of Fathom circulated the article to all of the major medical journals, including The Lancet. None showed the slightest interest in transmitting the findings to their readers. As for Dr Horton, he has never retracted his libellous and wholly unfounded charge of Israel’s “chronic dedevelopment” of the Palestinian territories. 

It seems that the old saying is true: when you make things absolutely clear, people become confused. Or perhaps their attention span contracts to zero whenever evidence is presented that doesn’t fit their preconceived narrative. Whatever the explanation, Horton, Giacaman and the army of medical “critics” who seize every opportunity to smear Israel with false allegations, are plain wrong. Israel has not only not damaged Palestinian health but has actually achieved the precise opposite. In the face of extraordinary obstacles, she succeeded in bringing about “measurable improvements” in Palestinian health, welfare and infrastructure.

This is a really good news story for both Israelis and Palestinians. It’s time that the international community (including the global medical profession) – that is seldom reluctant to offer an opinion on the conflict – celebrated the achievement for what it is. It’s also time for Dr Horton, Professor Giacaman and others who have, year after year, unfairly excoriated Israel for causing Palestinian ill health, suffering and death, to accept the overwhelming evidence that they were mistaken and change their minds, as I did. I’m not asking much – it’s what all who claim to adhere to an evidence-based approach should be willing to do. 

Five years after the publication of my research, it’s still not too late for Israel’s medical “critics” to do the right thing. (Health warning to readers: don’t hold your breath). 

You can read the full article here: http://fathomjournal.org/has-israel-damaged-palestinian-health/

Astounding Facts Most People Don’t Know About Israel: 5 

Most Israeli Jews are indigenous to the Middle East

Some years ago, I switched on one of those Sunday morning TV programmes about current affairs. I was just in time to catch a highly respected MSP (member of the Scottish parliament) angrily denouncing Israel as “an artificial state” because (she asserted) the Jewish state was established by immigrants from Europe and Russia. I couldn’t help wondering whether she regarded the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many other immigrant-founded countries in the same light. Sadly, I can’t ask her as she is now deceased. 

I do know that she, like many of Israel’s “critics”, was a strong supporter of the allegedly superior national rights of the “indigenous Palestinians” despite the fact that the Palestinian Arabs were almost as heterogeneous a group, in terms of their countries of origin, as the Jews they brand as foreigners. Indeed numerous Palestinian families reveal this phenomenon in their surnames – al-Masri (Egypt), al-Sham (Syria), al-Yamani (Yemen), al-Baghdadi (Iraq), al-Mughrabi (Morocco) and many more. Ironically, the main reason for the upsurge of Arab immigration to Palestine in the early twentieth century was the search for a better life in a land that was rapidly being transformed economically and socially by the Zionist pioneers.

That Scottish politician’s jaundiced view of Israel, however, resonates with many of the country’s enemies who endlessly parrot the view that Israel is an alien, Western colonialist outpost in the largely Arab-Muslim Middle East. Does that accusation accord with reality? (Spoiler – no). 

Contrary to a popular misconception, European and Russian Ashkenazi Jews – all of whom arrived in the West after taking the “high road” from Judea following their expulsion by the Romans from their homeland – are a minority in today’s Israel (though a majority among Jews worldwide). Along with the descendants of Jews who had remained in Israel throughout the generations, over 60% of Israel’s Jewish population today are Mizrachi (“Eastern”) Jews who hailed mainly from the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. This community adheres to many of the religious and cultural traditions of Sephardi (or “Spanish”) Jews with whom they are often confused, and indeed there is considerable overlap between them. (In passing, it’s worth noting that the distinctions between these various so-called Jewish ethnicities is somewhat artificial: genetic studies have shown a strong connection between them all – an unsurprising discovery since they all originated from their common ancestral homeland).  

Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, almost 900,000 Jews who had lived for centuries in the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa fled in fear of their lives or were ruthlessly and often brutally expelled. Unlike the Palestinian refugees and their descendants, with whom the world empathises through countless UN resolutions and massive financial support via specially created UN agencies, the Mizrachi Jewish refugees and their descendants are today all but invisible. 

Many of these Jewish refugees arrived penniless in Israel, receiving no compensation for property or other assets they were forced to leave behind, and no international recognition as refugees deserving sympathy and support. Even more remarkable, the Jewish exodus from Arab countries, unlike the parallel Palestinian displacement, was not the result of conflict: most of these Jewish communities had lived in relative peace (despite being treated as second-class citizens) for generations in their host countries. They were entirely innocent victims of a wave of visceral, lethal, state-sponsored hatred that was deliberately unleashed against them by Arab regimes enraged by the establishment of the world’s only Jewish state. The contrast with the Palestinian refugees, whose plight was the direct result of a war of annihilation launched by five Arab states (reinforced by contingents from two more) against the embryonic Jewish state, could not be starker.

A short quiz: how many UN resolutions have been passed highlighting the plight of the Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa? Answer: zero. How many times has the UN Human Rights Council or any other UN committee condemned the Arab states for their inhumane treatment of their Jewish citizens and their continuing refusal to offer recompense? Answer: zero. How much money has the international community allocated to support the Jewish refugees who had to flee their homes having had their possessions stolen and their homes appropriated? Answer: zero.

This double standard is self-evidently scandalous.Yet the Mizrachi refugees didn’t complain. They looked firmly to the future and set about creating new lives for themselves and their families in Israel, a struggling young country that welcomed them with open arms. Life was tough in the ma’abarot – hastily erected shanty towns that were, in essence, refugee camps – and the new state was overwhelmed by demands on its limited resources. Ethnic tensions between Ashkenazim andSephardim sometimes reached breaking point; the latter felt, with justification, that many of the former treated them with contempt. But somehow the newcomers were nevertheless housed, fed, rehabilitated and ultimately integrated. Modern Israeli culture, language and politics have been hugely influenced and enriched by the Mizrachim.

Why does all this matter? Three reasons. First, it explains many aspects – political, social and economic – of modern Israel that would otherwise baffle the outsider.  Second, it’s a largely untold story that most of the world, shamefully, has chosen to ignore or even erase from history. Finally, it nails the lie that Israel is a country of incoming “Western” colonialists that have no connection with the region. 

Jews are not immigrant interlopers in the Middle East. The roots of all Jews lie in Israel, the country to which they have yearned to return for almost two thousand years. Most of those who undertook the journey home since Israel's rebirth have done so from within the Middle East itself. Denying that reality is simply an attempt to delegitimise the entire Zionist enterprise. 

This isn’t a matter of “competing narratives” but of incontrovertible historical facts (remember those?). Jews rather than Arabs – who arrived on the scene around 1700 years after the establishment of the first Kingdom of Israel – are the true indigenous inhabitants of Israel. 

In the words of the late Charles Krauthammer: “Israel is the only country in the world with same name, the same language, the same faith and inhabiting the same land as it did 3,000 years ago.” That is an inconvenient truth for many Israel-haters but it’s one that they will have to swallow if there is ever to be peace between Israel and her enemies.    
            

Astounding Facts Most People Don’t Know About Israel: 4 

Israel does not (and never has) opposed freedom for the Palestinians

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

Anyone who has witnessed a pro-Palestine demonstration will have heard those words being chanted with feeling. But what do they mean?

“From the river (Jordan) to the (Mediterranean) sea” asserts that all of Israel plus the West Bank are Palestinian and that Israel is therefore illegitimate. “Palestine will be free” implies that the Palestinian nation is being held captive by the State of Israel that occupies their land. 

In other words, the absence of freedom from which the Palestinians suffer is directly attributable to the existence of Israel. The corollary is that Israel must disappear to enable the Palestinians to acquire their freedom. 

It seems, then, that Palestinian freedom is contingent on Israel’s demise. Sympathetic as many Israelis may be towards the Palestinians’ aspirations to freedom, they are understandably reluctant to commit suicide to pave the way for the fulfilment of this vision. 

If the above logic is valid, it consigns Israelis and Palestinians to endless conflict, or at least until one side prevails over the other. The prognosis is indeed gloomy if that is the case. Isn’t this the classic zero-sum-game? Fortunately for all of us – and especially for Israelis and Palestinians – it isn’t. The contested territory may be a tiny strip of land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea but there’s ample room for both peoples. All that is required is for each to acknowledge the right of the other to self-determination. What’s more, one side – Israel (and the pre-state Zionist movement) has done exactly that for close to a century – while the other has not. 

Let’s look at the historical facts. 

Two years after the Balfour declaration of 1917, the Zionist leader, Chaim Weizmann, reached an amicable agreement with Faisal, son of Emir Hussein of Mecca and the undisputed leader of the Arab world, whereby the right of self-determination of both Jews and Arabs was recognised. Faisal later tore up that accord under pressure from radicals. 

When Great Britain was granted the Palestine Mandate by the League of Nations in 1920, the territory allocated to the embryonic Jewish National Home spanned both sides of the Jordan. In their desire to accommodate Arab hostility to the Mandate, the British decided to create a large Arab state, Transjordan, that had no prior historical, political or cultural identity, in 78% of Palestine. This was a unilateral decision (to which the Americans are believed to have given a discreet green light) that was taken without consultation with the Zionist leadership who were, understandably, displeased – particularly as this new country, carved out of the prospective Jewish homeland, was utterly barred to Jews. But in the interests of peace, Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist luminaries, adopted a policy of compromise that would characterise all key future Jewish decision-making in the region, and reluctantly agreed to this first partition plan. Unfortunately, the Arab leadership was far less inclined to adopt a similar strategy and conflict became inevitable. 

Although a Palestinian Arab state had existed since 1922, the Zionist leadership twice more accepted proposals for a second Palestinian state – first in 1937 (the Peel Commission) and again in 1947 (the UN partition plan). In both cases, the Arab leadership rejected these attempts to establish two-states-for- two peoples. Despite their profound reservations about all of these ideas, the Zionist leaders accepted proposals to partition Mandatory Palestine – and establish a second Palestinian state alongside Israel – decades earlier than any other Middle Eastern country. 

There then followed a long litany missed opportunities for peace and mutual coexistence. I can only skim the surface here: the Rhodes armistice conference of 1949 that was supposed to lead to peace treaties but was frustrated by Arab intransigence; UN Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) that were met by the Three Noes of the Arab League; the 1978 Camp David accords (between Sadat, Begin and Carter) where an empty chair for Arafat symbolised his utter abrogation of responsibility for the future of his people; the 1993-5 Oslo accords that Arafat appeared to embrace but then refused to follow through with a negotiated peace; the 2000 Camp David summit where Israel’s PM Barak offered Arafat 94% of the West Bank and shared sovereignty of Jerusalem; the 2001 meet at Taba where Bill Clinton set out his Parameters for Peace and was snubbed by Arafat who was too busy whipping up the murderous Second Intifada; the 2003 initiative of the US’s President George W Bush who set out a Roadmap for Peace; the historic 2008 conference at Annapolis when Israeli PM Olmert offered Abbas even more than Barak had offered Arafat – 94% of the West Bank plus 6% in land swaps; the recurrent efforts throughout 2014-16 during the Obama administration when the Kerry-Allen and Biden plans were tabled and dismissed by Abbas. 

Every one of these attempts to grant the Palestinians their freedom was crushed to dust by the Palestinian leadership’s irresponsible posture of unremitting hostility to the idea of a Jewish state behind any borders. 

Israel even unilaterally withdrew from territory (from all of the Gaza Strip in 2005) in an attempt to facilitate the realisation of Palestinian self-rule leading ultimately, should that be their choice, to Palestinian statehood. None of these high-risk efforts by Israel have ever been reciprocated. On the contrary, they have been met by increased aggression and terrorism. 

Recognition of rights has to be mutual or it is meaningless. Here’s the rub: Arab and Palestinian leaders have remained steadfastly opposed to the existence of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the Middle East for a hundred years despite some latterly professing approval of the “two state solution,” a hollow phrase in the absence of definition. Today in 2019 we see yet another attempt – Trump’s so-called Deal of the Century – to kickstart a diplomatic process. Because the Palestinian leadership has rejected it in advance, it too looks destined for the dustbin of diplomatic history. 

Far from Israelis opposing Palestinian freedom, the historical record shows precisely the opposite – Israelis have consistently accepted the right (and desirability) of the Palestinian Arabs to achieve their national goals, while the Palestinians and most Arab leaders (plus some Muslim countries, notably Iran) have repeatedly refused to accord reciprocal rights to Jews and Israelis. This double standard is immoral and indefensible. Once again, conventional wisdom about this conflict is not just flawed but the exact opposite of the truth.   

Next time you hear the Israel-haters chanting From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!, reflect on the poor quality of Arab leadership over the decades and remind anyone who will listen to the truth exactly who is and who is not responsible for the lack of Palestinian freedom.    

Astounding Facts Most People Don’t Know About Israel: 3

The only ethnic or religious group that faces systematic discrimination in Israel are Jews

I happened to eavesdrop recently on a group conversation about Israel that had become heated. One of the participants, an earnest young Jewish woman, took exception to a discussant’s demand that Israel should cease discriminating in favour of Jews. “Hold on,” she insisted angrily, “If there are all these Christian and Muslim states, why aren’t we allowed one country in the world that favours Jews?” It’s a fair question but it rests on a false premise. 

In a previous blog, I touched on the widely misunderstood primus inter pares status of Judaism in the Jewish state (and on the equally misrepresented Law of Return, that has no bearing on civil rights within Israel). I demonstrated that, contrary to popular belief, Judaism is not the official religion of Israel; it is merely one of several that are recognised by the state. But what about Jews as a group, or as an ethnicity? Surely our young Zionist must be right? Whatever the status of Judaism as a faith, isn’t it self-evident that the Jewish State of Israel, by its very nature, discriminates in favour of Jews and against non-Jews? 

The systematic and institutionalised legal discrimination against her non-Jewish citizens is a charge that is often levelled at “apartheid” Israel by her detractors (including some Israeli NGOs). Superficially, it’s a powerful tool in the antiZionist armoury and one that often hits the target. Indeed of all the criticisms of Israel that her enemies can muster, doesn’t this one look like a potential debate-clincher? Well, yes, except for one small problem (from the anti-Israel perspective): the accusation is false. 

Let me reveal a well-kept secret: Israeli law does not discriminate in any way against its non-Jewish citizens. If that statement surprises you, you’re not alone. Even many Jews are unaware of that reality.

The corollary is even more astonishing: the only religious or ethnic group that faces systematic, legally enforced discrimination in Israel (and the territories she entered, in self-defence, during the 1967 Six Day War) are the Jews. 

That may seem an absurdly counter-intuitive statement. Yet it is entirely evidence based.

Sceptical? Let’s look at the facts. 

As in most countries, the Israeli majority sometimes display casual prejudice against several minorities (including some Jewish groups). Given the history of virtual civil war between Jews and Arabs over many decades, it would be surprising if a degree of mutual antipathy between them was absent. But the Basic Laws (Israel’s constitution) guarantee complete equality under the law for all her citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish. This offers all Israelis legal recourse to challenge any discriminatory behaviour that they may believe they have suffered. 

Within pre-1967 Israel (i.e. within the Green Line agreed at the Rhodes Armistice conference in 1949), most of the complicated laws relating to religion are rooted in the historical Status Quo regarding religious communities. These regulations date back to the Ottoman Empire and were sustained during the British Mandate and by successive Israeli governments. For example, only Orthodox strands of Judaism are recognised by the Chief Rabbinate thereby creating difficulties for non-Orthodox Israeli Jews in the realms of citizenship, marriage and burial. No such restrictions apply to other faiths in the country. As for residency, the Supreme Court has ruled that Jews are not permitted to exclude non-Jews from any of their communities while Arabs may exclude Jews from theirs. 

Regarding military service, the burden of defending the country falls almost exclusively on Jewish shoulders. Conscription is compulsory for all Jewish Israelis except Charedim (ultra-orthodox Jews) – and efforts to remove that exemption are ongoing. In addition to the physical danger to which soldiers are exposed, the disruption to family life, education, career advancement and economic well-being that is caused by both regular and reserve army service is considerable. Non-Jews (other than Druze and Circassian men) are not required to serve though they can volunteer (and many do).

Israel has always striven to protect and grant access to the holy places of all faiths, particularly following her entry in 1967 into the areas historically known as Judea and Samaria and renamed “The West Bank” by Jordan when that country annexed them in 1949. Yet while Christians and Muslims are guaranteed the right to worship at their holiest sites, Jews are not. On religious festivals, you can witness Christians flocking to the Churches of the Holy Sepulchre and Nativity, and Muslims to the Haram al-Sharif (the Islamic name for the Temple Mount); by contrast, Jews can hold prayer services only at the foot of the Western Wall – a structure that lies close to but not within the Temple Mount precinct itself, the most sacred spot in Judaism. 

Jews are also banned from visiting most of Hebron, the second holiest city of their faith, and one that was for centuries home to a substantial Jewish community until they were massacred or expelled by Muslim extremists in 1929. Under the Oslo Accords (1993-95), Jews are not permitted under any circumstances to live in large swathes (40%) of Judea, the historical Jewish homeland that is largely located in areas A and B. West Bank and Gaza Arabs, on the other hand, may (and do) choose to live throughout all of these territories (Areas A, B and C) except in the 1% of those territories (located mostly adjacent to the Green Line in Area C) where Israeli settlements have been established.

There you have it: Israeli Jews are restricted, by a raft of domestic and international legal instruments, in their ability to pursue the kind of lifestyle that most of us take for granted. In particular, they are denied the right to worship at – or even visit – their most sacred sites, or to live in a large part of their historical homeland, despite being required, for the duration of much of their adult lives, to put their lives on the line for the purposes of defending the state. All of these obstacles to normal life stand in stark contrast to the position of every other ethnic or religious group that resides in the country. If that doesn’t amount to systematic discrimination, what does? 

That extraordinary state of affairs begs a further question: why were these draconian prohibitions on Jewish rights implemented over many decades by successive Israeli administrations? The answer is simple and commendable, though far too rarely acknowledged: to avoid provoking Arab/Muslim sensibilities. This is a unique and unprecedented policy: where else in the world has a government voluntarily renounced the rights of the majority of its citizens to live in their historical homeland, or pray at or visit their holiest sites, solely in the interests of achieving peace treaties with their neighbours?

Next time you hear someone stridently denouncing (or, for that matter, defending) Israel for “favouring Jews" or "discriminating against non-Jews," speak up and protest. Having read this blog, you now possess the evidence to set the record straight. 

Astounding Facts Most People Don’t Know About Israel: 2

Astounding Facts Most People Don’t Know About Israel: 2 

Although Israel is the world's only Jewish State, Judaism is not the official religion of Israel

Judaism is not the official state religion of Israel. Yes, you read that correctly. Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, has not designated Judaism as the official religion of the country.

Judaism is one of five religions recognised by the state – Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Druzism and Bahai and all have equal status in law. Both the concept of the Jewish State and the nature of Judaism itself are hotly debated in Israel and no official constitutional definition of either has ever been made. 

For many (perhaps most) Israelis, being Jewish is not primarily, or even partly, a religious identity and they view their country as Jewish in terms of its history, geography, culture and language rather than faith. 

In a 2018 lecture, former Member of Knesset Einat Wilf said “Zionism is a modern secular rebellion” [against religion]. The depiction of Jews as adhering to a religious faith (Judaism) is a modern European construct that arose out of the Enlightenment. It was embraced enthusiastically by some Jews but ultimately failed to improve the general position and status of Jews in Europe that had been promised by Napoleon and others. That was because Jews were granted rights as individuals adhering to a faith while denying their rights as a people.

Even religious Jews in Israel tend to view their identity in terms of Am Yisrael (the people of Israel) rather than a theologically-defined credo. Restrictions on public transport and commercial activity on the Sabbath, and on the Orthodox rabbinical monopoly on the life-cycle rituals of birth, marriage and death, are widely reviled in Israel; they reflect the longstanding taboo against disturbing the so-called Status Quo of religious life in the country, first established by the Turks and continued by successive British and Israeli administrations. This peculiar historical legacy has been perpetuated by the vagaries of Israeli coalition politics, whereby small religious parties exert disproportionate power, rather than as a result of a national consensus on the perceived need for public life to reflect any particular brand of spiritual observance.

In comparison to other modern democracies, Israel sits closer to the secular than to the religious end of the spectrum. Take the United States and the United Kingdom: almost all US presidents and British prime ministers have been practising Christians. By contrast, almost all Israeli prime ministers have been non-religious, non-observant Jews. Allegiance to Christianity permeates every level of society in the US and UK, including their parliaments, judiciary and national holidays. Anglicanism is the official religion of England, the largest constituent of the United Kingdom, whose monarch is the head of the Church of England and "Defender of the Faith.” While the US is formally a secular state, the words “In God We Trust” have been mandated to appear on American currency since 1957, and are familiar to all who have contact with the institutions of state. No contender for high political office would dream of ending a speech without uttering “God Bless America." 

Such a culture of publicly-proclaimed fervent religiosity is (with rare exceptions) alien to the Israeli political system. It’s a supreme irony that the leaders and institutions of the world’s only self-defined Jewish state are far less religious than their counterparts in so-called “secular” states elsewhere. And yet it is Israel, rather than the US nor the UK, that is repeatedly (and falsely) criticised for its allegedly confessional, theocentric nature. 

The religious nature of many other countries is equally unambiguous. Modern states with a single official state-endorsed religion include Italy, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland, at least 24 Muslim-majority countries plus the Palestinian Authority, and six Buddhist-majority countries. Somehow, these countries manage to escape the solemn strictures against fusing church and state that are hurled with stridency against Israel. In the UK and other “secular” European countries, look what happens in the period before Christmas: we get wall-to-wall carols, masses, oratorios, gospel singing and endless speeches, homilies and other references to God and Jesus – as if there were no non-Christians or non-believers in the country. That just doesn’t happen before and during the national holidays in Israel.

Critics will retort that, notwithstanding the formal position of religion in Israel, Jews are nevertheless a privileged group within the country. The Israeli flag and anthems are Jewish, government is dominated by Jews, the Nation State Law declares that Israel is a Jewish state, and the Law of Return favours Jewish immigrants. Superficially, all of this looks a plausible case for the prosecution. But a closer analysis of the evidence reveals a different picture. First, all of these symbols and laws relate explicitly to nationality rather than religion. Second, all citizens of Israel are treated equally under the law, and have equal political, legal, civil and religious rights. This is the epitome of a true liberal democracy, and the only example of one in the entire Middle East. 

Nevertheless, there is a degree of systematic religious discrimination in Israel – against Jews and Jews alone. Jews are the only religious group forbidden to pray at their most sacred site – the Temple Mount. Access to their second most sacred city, Hebron, is strictly limited to a small enclave. Jews are not permitted to live or even enter Area A of the West Bank (the contemporary name for the biblical Jewish homeland of Judea). Moreover, Jews are not permitted to establish “Jewish only” communities in Israel (a deleted clause from the Nation State law draft) while Arabs are. And only Jews are required to undertake military service, disrupting family life, education and employment. 

It is true that the Law of Return favours Jewish immigrants over others in an attempt to reverse two millennia of expulsions, discrimination and massacres. Jews were not only ethnically cleansed by the Roman colonial administration in the first century, they were prevented from returning to their homeland throughout most of the next two thousand years by successive rulers of the land, renamed Syria Palaestina (a gesture of Roman contempt towards the Jews by deliberating renaming Judea after their bitterest enemies, the Philistines). Despite these restrictions, some Jews managed to remain in the country against all the odds though they were, of course, a minority. If ever there was a case for positive discrimination, this is it. Similar laws exist in many other countries with a far weaker case. 

It’s time to lay this canard of Israel’s Jewish nature to rest. The evidence is clear: Israel is not the national embodiment of religious Judaism. Its culture, calendar, symbols and national life are certainly inspired by the Jewish world and yes, even by some aspects of Judaism, but it is far from the ethnocentric, clerical state of popular Western and Arab imagination. Israel is one of the most diverse countries – ethically, culturally and religiously – in the world. No amount of massaging of the facts to suit a preconceived and prejudiced notion can change that reality.

Astounding Facts Most People Don’t Know About Israel: 1

The only parts of the Balfour Declaration that remain unfulfilled are those relating to the Jewish people 

As well as the abundant and obsessively hostile propaganda (aka lies) about Israel that surges across social platforms globally, there is a woeful lack of truthful, factual information about that small country, the world's only Jewish state. This series of articles is offered as a modest contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to redress the balance.

Fact 1. The only parts of the Balfour Declaration that remain unfulfilled are those relating to the Jewish people

You may have heard of the Balfour Declaration. If you haven't, and want to understand the historical context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, you should certainly read it. If you have heard of it, you may nevertheless have been misled about its content, meaning and implications, or you may not have fully grasped the degree to which it was (or wasn't) implemented. Whatever your level of knowledge on this subject, I offer here a few insights which you may find helpful. These are set out in more detail in a booklet published by the politically non-partisan educational NGO StandWithUs [1].

What was the Balfour Declaration?

On 2nd November 1917, the British War Cabinet issued a statement in the form of a letter from Lord Arthur James Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, an Anglo-Jewish dignitary, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The letter stated that:

“His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The Balfour Declaration, as this document became known, was a ground-breaking British government statement that recognised the profound and unbroken historical, religious and cultural connection of the Jewish people to the land from which they had been largely expelled, and destroyed as a sovereign nation, by the Romans some 2,000 years earlier, a land that had been renamed “Palestine” by its conquerors.

Furthermore, the Declaration obligated the British government to use its “best endeavours” – meaning that they would implement all reasonable measures rather than merely offer support in principle – to achieve the objective of the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

The Declaration was incorporated, virtually word for word, in two major international agreements – the San Remo Resolution in 1920 and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine that was given to the British Government later that year. That eventually led, though a devious and blood-drenched path, to the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948.

Many commentators, including some who are generally sympathetic to Israel, have suggested that the Declaration was the foundation document of the Jewish state, and that its terms were only partially fulfilled in that Jewish aspirations were met while ignoring those of the Arab population of Palestine and the Middle East. Superficially, this is a plausible argument. But it's wrong.

Let's examine the Declaration carefully. It comprised three parts.

The Declaration's first part (the establishment of the Jewish National Home) was technically achieved in 1948 but remains work in progress as so many of Israel’s neighbours – with the collusion of external allies – continue to seek her destruction. Without a strong army and the expenditure of huge resources on defence, Israel simply could not survive. A National Home, whose existence as a sovereign state continues to be challenged and threatened with annihilation, is a violation of the spirit of the Declaration (and, incidentally, a breach of the UN charter). That is a contemporary reality that even Israel's most bitter enemies acknowledge.

The Declaration's second part (the protection of the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish population of Palestine) was rigorously fulfilled through the Israel's Declaration of Independence and the related Basic Laws in Israel. The legal protection of minorities in Israel stands in marked contrast to the position of Jews in Arab states. Although the Declaration did not address Arab national ambitions, those too were granted expression since 22 Arab States were subsequently created. One of these was a Palestinian Arab one, Transjordan, that was brought into being by the British in 1922 in territory that comprised the geographically larger portion of the original Mandatory Palestine – 26 years before Israel declared her independence.

The Declaration's third part (the protection of the status of existing Jewish communities in the diaspora) was entirely ignored throughout the Arab world. On the contrary, Arab governments viciously turned on their Jewish citizens and actively promoted the expulsion of at least 900,000 Jews from countries across the Middle East and North Africa. To this day, none of these countries has accepted responsibility or offered an apology for this large-scale ethnic cleansing, let alone provided even minimal recompense. 

Consequently, it is clear that only the second part (relating to Arab rights within Israel) of the Declaration has actually been fully fulfilled. Curiously, that is the only part that most commentators seem to think wasn’t. 

The first and third parts – those relating to the Jewish people – have yet to be properly implemented and accepted by Israel's neighbours and by much of the international community. 

Surprised? You shouldn't be. As with many of the facts surrounding Israel, reality has been inverted and history rewritten to suit a false narrative. Yet many of Israel's critics are unable or unwilling to recognise this distortion. 

That's what happens when preconceptions, rhetoric or prejudice are permitted to cloud evidence-based judgement. 

1. StandWithUs. Justice and Rebirth for a Historically Oppressed People. The Balfour Declaration, San Remo and the British Mandate    https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/46fc49_47bf6defb804456ead7771dcac145475.pdf
Accessed 25 March 2021

Towards an evidence-based discourse about the Arab-Israeli conflict – who is responsible?

In my first blog, I called for an evidence-based approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. That seems entirely uncontentious. I have yet to encounter anyone who opposes it. Why, then, do so many critics of Israel ignore almost all of the evidence?

I can think of a few reasons but let us clarify language at the outset. Evidence does not mean “arguments that I muster to support my point of view” since that sets up an endless reiteration of a vicious circle of prejudice. Evidence means the objectively verifiable facts relating to the conflict. There is no room here for the fatuous post-modernist concept of “competing narratives.” Either something happened or it didn’t.

Perhaps the most crucial piece of evidence that all parties should be capable of affirming relates to the so-called “two sate solution.” The conflict may be characterised as a territorial one between two peoples struggling to establish sovereignty over a tiny scrap of territory. All attempts to mediate have proposed a stunningly obvious and simple answer – share it. The British thought they had implemented such a solution when they carved an Arab state, Transjordan, out of the Jewish National Home in 1922 but that failed to meet Arab aspirations. The Jewish leadership, in an act of extraordinary generosity motivated by a desire for peace, acquiesced both in that initial partition and in later attempts to divide the remaining 22% of Palestine that lay west of the River Jordan. And indeed two states for two peoples (Jewish and Arab) could have been brought into existence in the 1930s had both sides accepted the Peel Commission proposal of 1937.

Why didn’t it happen? The Jewish leadership reluctantly agrees to the idea, subject to negotiation, while the Arab leadership rejected it outright – fact. Then in 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine proposed the same, albeit with slightly different boundaries. Again, it didn’t happen because the Jewish leadership accepted partition while the Arab leadership rejected it – fact. In neither case did the Arab opposition derive from the precise details of the proposal but to its principal. Their view was expressed repeatedly and explicitly – no Jewish state, within whatever borders might be suggested, would be acceptable in any form whatsoever. There are no “competing narratives” and to insist that there are merely obfuscates.

Over the years there have been many opportunities to resolve the conflict through negotiations based on that formula that all moderate commentators agree provides the only means of an equitable settlement. Think of all the misery that could have been avoided had both sides signed up to it when it was first proposed. That is the true tragedy – that the entire conflict and its myriad consequences could have been avoided. That it wasn’t cannot be attributed to anything other than the incontrovertible fact that one side refused to agree to it and expressed that refusal violently. And that side was the Arab/Palestinian one. Whatever transpired subsequently, the Arab leadership bears the entire moral culpability for the initiation – and to a large extent the perpetuation – of the conflict through their persistent refusal to accept the two-state solution. That is not my opinion. That is an evidence-based statement that is fundamental to any fair-minded and clear analysis of the problem.

Isra-Prof