How deep is the culture of fear in Israel? Every day seems to bring a fresh piece of evidence indicating it is quite deep indeed. Last week, I was waiting for the bus, when I saw this poster on the bus stop:

The picture, taken by me, is unfortunately not very clear. The message at the top says “Don’t leave us behind!” The bottom lines read: “Say no to the chalkboard and chalk! Because education is my future. Yours. [The future of] all of us!” The ad is attributed to “HighQ”, an Israeli corporation (with a name in English, for some reason) which specializes in preparing students for the matriculation exams and SATs. The name of the company is followed by the slogan “Presentations in class are not an extra. They are your grade!”

So far, the poster seems relatively unproblematic, if a bit short on understatement and originality. What is truly scary, quite literally, is the text at the very middle of the poster (which I managed to capture a bit more clearly):

It reads: “Yesterday, they said on the news that Israel has the most advanced missiles in the world. They said that our technological progress is the only reason we have not yet been thrown into the sea. I’m a little scared. I don’t know how to swim very well…” This text is presented as a quote attributed to “Maya, soon to be ten years old”, presumably, the girl whose picture appears next to the text.

For context, I should mention that the threat of being “thrown into the sea”, always by “Arabs”, is a very well-known catchphrase in Israel, indicating the existential threat the country presumably faces.

One could criticize this text for its poor taste and cynical tone. But what is much more worrying is that its creators clearly believe it would hit a chord. In their minds, Israelis are frightened ten-year old children, who feel on the constant brink of extinction. In other countries, when you say “education is our future”, you usually mean that it will determine the level of prosperity and accomplishment we can hope to achieve. In Israel, the “future” is meant quite literally, in the sense that without education, we would have no future because we would all be dead.

Note: unusually, this seems to be a purely off-line campaign, with no mention of it on the company’s website, or anywhere else on the internet. Presumably, it is meant to tout the company’s advanced educational tools, but I cannot be sure.

According to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, the Spanish foreign minister outlined a new policy in her speech to the UN General Assembly last week. The headline chosen by the newspaper was “Spain recognizes Israel as Jewish homeland”. According to the article’s text, the Spanish minister also argued that “the issue of Palestinian refugees should be solved in such a way that it does not compromise Israel’s current demographic makeup of a Jewish majority.”

If that was an accurate depiction of Spain’s position, it could be an important (and, in my opinion, worrying) harbinger of an international inclination to accept Israeli demands on these topics. However, the truth is more nuanced and fuzzy than that.

The Spanish foreign minister’s full remarks (PDF) were indeed interesting. On the issue of a “Jewish state”, she says (as Ha’aretz almost fully quotes in the main body of the text):

I wish to underline Spain’s commitment to the State of Israel as the embodiment of the project to create a homeland for the Jewish people.

Diplomatic speech tends to be intentionally hedged, and this statement is no exception. It establishes several degrees of separation between the State of Israel and its Jewish character. Firstly, by referring to “the project to create” a Jewish homeland, rather than the homeland itself, it places the Jewishness of the state in a historical context, as a project that can presumably be completed or at least wound down. Secondly, it refers to a “Jewish homeland” rather than a “Jewish state”, indicating that Israel should be a home for the Jews, rather than embrace a character that is internally biased in their favor. Thirdly, it does not say that Israel “is” the Jewish homeland, but that it embodies the project to create one. In other words, it implies that this is one of the elements that define Israel, rather than the exclusive core of its identity.

Admittedly, this formulation is unlikely to satisfy the Palestinians, or anyone who does not have the time or patience for such semantic gymnastics. However, it does point to the elephant in the room: Palestinian citizens in Israel. The Spanish squirming is meant to answer Israel’s demands, without in any way legitimizing the massive discrimination and exclusion of these citizens. This is a trick that many other international players would like to replicate. But it is unlikely to be successful. After all, one of the main thrusts behind the Israeli push on this issue is precisely the drive to enshrine Jews as first class citizens, and validate their ownership of the state.

The Israeli government’s other major motive in demanding Palestinian recognition of the Jewishness of the state relates to the other point stressed by Ha’aretz: the Palestinian refugee issue. Here, the newspaper clearly misrepresents the Spanish position, by avoiding the direct quote, which is as follows:

Also, the solution to be given to the painful drama of the Palestinian refugees shall be just and agreed upon by all parties concerned, allowing the preservation of Israel’s current character.

This position represents yet another diplomatic maneuver around a seemingly unresolvable impasse. Israel refuses to accept the return of Palestinian refugees to its territory (although some leaders have been willing to consider symbolic gestures on “family re-unification”). Ha’aretz is right to interpret the Spanish position as accepting this Israeli refusal. Indeed, it is likely that no serious international actor believes a resolution of the conflict will involve the return of refugees into Israel.

Yet, they still find it very difficult to come out and say it. Why? Because it is very hard to deny the legitimacy of the Palestinian claim. The right of people who were forced to flee from their country to return to it, after the conflict ends, is a widely accepted principle, and a strongly intuitive one at that. It was of the cornerstones of the agreement on Bosnia, 16 years ago.

The practicality of this principle in the context of Israel/Palestine is another matter. But outright endorsement of the Israeli position is so difficult, that even a clearly sympathetic Spanish foreign minister has to vaguely talk about “allowing the preservation of Israel’s current character”, a formula that could easily enable to return of many more refugees than Israel would ever accept, although certainly not all of them.

Generally, I sympathize with those who ask: “Shouldn’t all stories be ‘fact-check’ stories?” Still, as a frequent reader of Israeli journalism, I should be thankful for small favors, and appreciate the genre’s existence in English-language media. But the only thing worse than not checking the facts, is presuming to do so, while being in error oneself. That is what happened to the Associated Press when it tried to fact-check Mahmoud Abbas’ UN speech.

The intro was inauspicious, to say the least. The AP argued that Abbas “presented a narrative that is disputed by Israel.” The agency then offered “counter-arguments” to some of his assertions. Fact-checkers should, at the very least, understand the definition of “fact.” A fact is not an assertion supported by all sides to a debate (otherwise, fact-checking itself would be superfluous) nor is it an argument with no counterargument (ditto). It is simply an assertion which is true. Unless AP is implying that the Israeli “narrative” is always true (an impression bolstered by the omission of an equivalent fact check for Netanyahu’s speech).

Unsurprisingly, and contrary to their assertion, AP has not managed to find a single “factually incorrect” statement in Abbas’ speech, while making quite a few “factually incorrect” assertions of their own along the way.

Occupation: Abbas said Palestinians live under “the only occupation in the world.” AP argues that other groups say they are also occupied. All of those groups, however, live in areas officially annexed by their oppressor, and are citizens of the state that controls their lives. Palestinians, on the other hand, live under military law and have no citizenship. Israel refuses to take responsibility to them or relinquish control. That is what makes it the only occupation in the world.

Prisoners: Abbas views Palestinians held by Israel as “prisoners of conscience.” AP, in accordance with their bizarre method, “refutes” this by referring to Israel’s view of these prisoners as violent security risks. But what are the facts? According to figures provided by the IDF, excluding traffic offenses, less than half [pdf] of the indictments in Israel’s Military Courts, where Palestinians are tried, are for terrorism charges, even under Israel’s expansive definitions of the term. Many of the prisoners are awaiting trial, as Military Court proceedings can last for two years while the accused is incarcerated. Because of this, and the virtually non-existent odds of acquittal, many plead out even though they continue to maintain their innocence. Certainly, many prisoners were involved in violence and terrorism; but many others, perhaps most, fit the definition of “prisoners of conscience.” AP, unfortunately, does not bother providing any of these facts.

Jewish connection to holy land, and Gaza: AP basically slams Abbas for not parroting Israeli talking points, and is unable to find a single inaccurate thing he said.

Peace talks: Abbas said Palestinians “believe in peace”. AP mentions Palestinians have rejected two Israeli peace offers. That, in itself, is a highly inaccurate description of events, but never mind: astonishingly, AP neglects to mention that Israel also rejected Abbas’ offer in the same negotiations in 2008.

Settlements: AP refutes nothing Abbas said, and actually ends up strengthening his point.

Final score: Abbas- 6; AP – zero.

The Middle East International Quartet – composed of the US, EU, UN and Russia – issued a statement yesterday, following the Palestinian application for statehood. Initial plans to affirm the 1967 lines as a basis for final borders, and to endorse Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, were scrapped, in a favor of a more process-oriented text.

This was probably a wise choice. The support for 1967 lines is hum-drum enough, having been reaffirmed in numerous international pronouncements, documents and resolutions. Netanyahu and his right-wing allies have tried to make an issue of this over the past year, but as usual, the Israeli prime minister got caught in his own web of manipulation, when it was uncovered that he himself has endorsed such language very recently.

The issue of Israel as a Jewish state is another matter entirely. While generally endorsed by the US, other international actors have been more hesitant. As Roee Ruttenberg explains, this is a problematic step for Palestinians, while having little practical effect on Israel’s actual character, which is, in fact, quite Jewish. Had the Quartet backed this principle in its statement, it would have made it difficult for future Israeli governments to compromise on this point, and thus, would have further reduced the already bleak chances of reaching an agreement.

So, the Quartet just barely implemented the Hippocratic principle: “Do no harm.” Has it done any good? Not really. It has suggested a series of steps, with deadlines attached to each stage, which would supposedly culminate in a final resolution of the conflict by the end of 2012. The Israeli daily Ha’aretz quoted a US official saying that:

the proposal provides “a credible, serious alternative path and we believe that both sides, if they’re true to their words, will find a way to respond favorably to this.” He added that “the idea of offering this timeline gives the parties a sense that this is not open-ended, that there are real goals and that there’s a serious process underway”.

If he managed to say this with a straight face, you have to give credit to American diplomatic skills. After all, the Oslo accords set a deadline for final resolution by 1999, or twelve years ago. George W. Bush announced that a Palestinian state would exist and all issues solved by 2005, six years ago. And those are just the most prominent of a pile-up of missed deadlines for negotiations.

Considering that the current Israeli government is intransigent, and the US has checked out for a while, the one actor which could still make diplomatic waves is, unusually, the Palestinians. Their application for statehood is likely to fail in the Security Council, facing a US veto, and score a largely symbolic victory in the General Assembly.

International actors, as well as Israel, should be far more concerned about hints that the Palestinian Authority might decide to shutter its doors, and hand responsibility back to Israel and the international community. So far, such threats have not been taken seriously. But if this assessment changes and Abbas is really willing to follow through, he could extract major concessions to avoid this scenario, which is likely to terrify Israel and the world much more than Palestinian statehood, or even another surge of violence. It will certainly not be enough to achieve a comprehensive agreement, but steps on the ground, such halting settlement growth? Maybe.

Update: The PA criticizes the statement for not mentioning 1967 lines.

Obama’s stance regarding the recognition of the Palestinian state, and his strident pro-Israeli tone before the UN have been variously explained as symptoms of the power of the Jewish voters/donors/lobby, or of America’s declining stature and influence in the world (ignoring recent progress on Libya, Al Qaeda and Iraq). But there is a much simpler explanation.

Obama has reverted to the default (i.e. staunchly sympathetic towards Israel) US position, because he realized there is nothing he could do to improve the situation. Therefore, there is no point in wasting his time and political resources on this issue. And he’s right: the US president does not have the power to change the dynamic on Palestine, and he is not to blame for the impasse we face.

What could he have done? Critics say he could have recognized a Palestinian state, and voted according in the Security Council, or pressured Israel more, or offered his own peace plan. But if one runs through the scenarios, it is hard to see how any of these paths could have led to a significantly better result.

If the US administration were to recognize Palestine, this would certainly be a dramatic move, with substantial legal and symbolic consequences. But the US Congress – Republicans and Democrats alike – would do everything in their power to derail this policy. And even if they don’t, it is very hard to see Netanyahu throw away both his ideology and his premiership to follow suit. If the occupation continues, what’s the difference? No wonder many Palestinians are quite skeptical about this path.

What about more pressure on Israel? This is the favorite hobbyhorse of the administration’s critics. Certainly, Obama could have dialed it up many notches. But nowhere near enough to make Netanyhau, or his coalition, change their stripes. Without support from Congress, there are few sanctions the President can apply, and it is not clear that even sanctions would have made the Israeli right budge, or caused its public support to collapse.

Surely, Obama could have presented a peace plan of his own? The idea is appealing as an abstract notion, but one soon gets stuck on the content. Remember that Olmert and Abbas exchanged competing proposals on borders, and a significant gap remained, even without getting to the issue of the holy places or Palestinian refugees. If Obama were to move towards the Palestinians, his plan would be rejected not just by the current government in Jerusalem, but by the opposition as well. If he were to move towards Israel, he would be denounced as a sell-out, and rightly so.

What these three scenarios have in common, besides ending badly, is the underlying dynamic and power relations. Even if Obama’s policy had been perfect (and it certainly wasn’t), that would not have been enough to make Israeli society accept the need to change its policy towards the Palestinians. America’s involvement will be critical when that happens, but relying on any external force to somehow compel this change is both counter-productive and dangerous. This is not the time to be disillusioned about Obama – it is time to be disillusioned about the whole notion of a foreign knight in shining armor riding to the rescue.

The unscheduled and unfortunately long hiatus in the Israeli policy myths series coincided with the unprecedented rise of the current social protest movement. This movement has brought the enormous erosion of Israel’s social safety net to the forefront of public discussion. Yet, if anything, Israelis are underestimating how bad things have become. In this, the suddenly topical fourth installment of the series, I will argue that the situation here is now worse than in the United States, which is widely considered the bastion of “leaving thing up to market,” social Darwinist ideology.

First, let us begin with the headline figure. The US spent 17% of all the goods and services it produced in 2007 on government-provided social services. Israel spent just 15.5% on those services. Among OECD members, this puts it seventh from the bottom, squarely beating such countries as Chile, Mexico and Turkey.

Admittedly, this is largely a reflection of much higher spending on healthcare by the US, which does not necessarily lead to better results, and actually includes less coverage than Israel’s universal system. But the overall impression of an immensely weak social safety net, even in comparison to a country with a much worse reputation on this front, is borne out when we look beyond headline figures, into specific elements of the social safety net.

What happens when you’re old? In the United States, the average social security check comes to 1,177$. In Israel, it is a flat 400$ [Heb], which is nowhere near the equivalent in terms of cost of living or average earnings. Medicare actually provides excellent healthcare for all Americans over 65. Israel’s elderly are covered just like everybody else, which means…

What happens when you’re sick? This is where Israel is supposed to come out ahead. And right now, it does. Here, everyone is covered, whereas tens of millions of Americans are uninsured. However, once the provisions of Affordable Care Act (ACA) fully kick in, in 2014 – assuming the law is not thrown out by the Supreme Court – the US will arguably have a better safety net, even in healthcare. Certainly, the countries will be going in completely opposite directions, as Israel’s deductibles and co-payments soar.

What happens when you’re unemployed? Republicans are opposed to President Obama’s proposal to extend the duration of unemployment benefits beyond the current limit of 99 weeks. Israelis should be so lucky – the most they will get is 25 weeks [Heb].

Yes, Israel is still less unequal than the United States, but this is one gap that we are closing fast. No wonder people are rising up in protest.

Read more in this series:

All previous posts in Top 10 Israeli Policy Myths:

Introducing: Top ten myths about Israeli policy
Myth #1: Security is our first concern
Myth #2: Separation between Jews and Arabs is not racist

Myth #3: Trying to stem a flood of migrants

Netanyahu … described his strategic objectives as including perpetual military control over the Jordan Valley, perpetual Israeli control over East Jerusalem, and the non-emergence of a genuinely sovereign Palestinian polity on whatever scraps of the West Bank remain for Palestinian residents once Jewish settlers have grabbed all the bits they want… it’s clearly Netanyahu’s objective, and he’s pursued it quite doggedly and quite effectively for a long time now. He pursued it successfully as Prime Minister in the 1990s… And now back in the highest office in the land he’s pursuing it again, and he seems to be pursuing it successfully.

But I disagree with the following claim:

It’s true that regional isolation is one of the costs of this policy, but that simply underscores the extent to which there’s a real strategic commitment here and a price Netanyahu is willing to pay.

All of Netanyahu’s predecessors have pursued roughly the same policy. Some of them may have been willing to concede more territory, but not enough to substantially diverge from Netnayahu’s vision of Jewish Israeli dominance, or make a difference for Palestinians. Yet those leaders have managed to avoid regional isolation.

What has changed? First, the Arab spring (and the decades-long democratization of Turkey that preceded it) are making regional governments more responsive to the widespread resentment provoked by Israel’s policies. Second, Netanyahu’s government relies on parties – including Shas, Yisrael Beitenu, and Netanyahu’s own Likud– that owe their success to an electoral strategy of fomenting xenophobia and chauvinism. That entails adopting public stances which further alienate other peoples and governments in the region.

In other words, Netanyahu is willing the pay the price of regional isolation in order to maintain his electoral strategy, rather than his strategy towards the Palestinians. That is a key difference, and that makes it even less likely that he will show any flexibility.

Simply put, the law seeks to penalize those who call for boycotting Israel, the settlements, or anyone related to the occupation. If a person, for example, calls for a boycott of academic institutions that participate in the occupation, he could be sued in civil court, and ordered to pay compensation. If a company agrees not to purchase products manufactured in the settlements, it could be barred from government contracts. If an NGO joins the global BDS call, it could be stripped of its non-profit status, and compelled to pay taxes as if it was a commercial firm.

This law joins a long and ignominious list of legislative acts that have passed or been suggested in the past few years, that seek to reduce Israelis’ freedom of speech and assembly, and formalize discrimination of Palestinian Israelis. But it is also different from previously enacted legislation. Unlike the segregation law, it goes beyond enshrining an existing practice. And unlike the Nakba law, it will have a significant and immediate practical effect. As of today, a wide range of people and groups who once called for a boycott will cease doing so. The space for debate and discussion in Israeli society will shrink right before our eyes.

Although only a small minority of Israelis have expressed support for BDS (and I am not one of them), their voice has been significant. At the very least, some very prominent cultural figures have called for boycotting the settlements, and now, if they persist, they could be in serious financial trouble. In some ways, the law is actually more effective than applying a criminal sanction, which has to be enforced by overstretched (and skeptical) police and prosecutors, and meet high standards of evidence. Even if the law is eventually thrown out by the High Court of Justice, in the meantime, the very threat of myriad lawsuits by determined settlers and hard right groups is enough to deter many boycott supporters, who do not have the means to conduct expensive legal battles.

This law is outrageous and wrong on so many levels; it is hard to know where to start. It punishes people for expressing an opinion, just because this opinion upsets the majority. It makes it difficult to pursue a peaceful and non-violent method of resisting the occupation. It is discriminatory in a lop-sided manner, hindering opposition to the evils of the occupation, while having nothing to say about racist boycotts of Arab workers, businesses and tenants. It aims to protect Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories from outside pressure, but surely it will only serve to highlight the country’s increasing penchant for oppression and discrimination.

The anti-boycott law’s effect is pernicious enough, but when you look at the situation it reflects, the picture becomes even grimmer. It represents a response to the growing BDS movement, but it clearly reinforces its major article of faith: that the strongest forces inside Israeli society are pushing in a dark direction, and any improvement for the Palestinians must rely on foreign intervention.

The counter-productive nature of this measure demonstrates that it is far from an ordinary act of repression. Instead, it exposes an Israeli polity that is incapable of engaging in debates, and responds to criticism with panicked attempts to silence it. It is more fearful of non-violent speech, for which it has no answer, than of violence, which it can quell with overwhelming force. In this sense, the anti-boycott law is almost a perfect encapsulation of Israel’s current predicament. And it is not a good omen.

In Israel today, there are two classes of immigrants. One is composed of those who come under the Law of Return, which supposedly grants automatic citizenship for Jews and their immediate relatives (the myth surrounding this law will be discussed in the final installment of this series). The second class is composed, well, of everyone else.

How do they fare? Quite badly, in fact. Children who have lived in the country for the majority of their lives face deportation [Hebrew]. A mother of an infant child with Israeli citizenship nonetheless also faces deportation. Getting pregnant will cost you your visa [Hebrew], despite a High Court of Justice ruling that says otherwise (and see upcoming myth #9 on that). And soon, the first Israeli-only kindergartens in the country will be opened.

Refugees fare no better. A deaf Eritrean recently spent almost two years in jail, because his identity could not be verified. Some are imprisoned just because they require medical care, while others are incarcerated [Hebrew] without access to appropriate medical facilities. And the government is doubling down on this policy, building a huge new prison for refugees, with intentionally cramped conditions. Things have gotten so bad, that HIAS – an international Jewish organization working with asylum seekers – has scaled down its cooperation with the Israeli government [Hebrew], following a decision to arrest asylum seekers on the spot if their request is denied.

The myth of the flood

These draconian and inhumane measures are justified by the claim that Israel is flooded by work migrants from impoverished countries, who illegally enter the country and often put forward bogus claims of fleeing from persecution, in order to stay. The actual and potential numbers are so large, it is argued, that a myriad of ill consequences will follow if the tide is not stemmed: wages for low-skilled workers will be depressed, crime will soar, and the nature of the country will be irreversibly altered. The Interior Minister and his top immigration official have raised the stakes to the point of accusing NGOs assisting migrants and refugees of aiming to destroy Israel and Zionism.

The ugliness of this nativist rhetoric, particularly galling from Jews whose parents, or they themselves, came to this country as immigrants and refugees, is compounded by the magnitude of the lie it embeds. Reliable figures are hard to come by, not least because immigration authorities are among the least transparent [Hebrew] government bodies in Israel.

According to the most recent official figures [Hebrew], there are 124,168 migrants who are not citizens in Israel today. That is slightly more than 1.6% of the country’s population. But almost three-fifths of them came to work here legally, with government-issued work visas. The number of illegal migrants therefore comes to a total of less than 0.7% of the country’s population.

Of those, two thirds are asylum seekers, 90% of whom, according to reports by the state of Israel itself [pdf], are actual refugees (although the state refuses to grant them proper recognition and protection as such). Overall, according to the best official Israeli estimates, there are less than 20,000 illegal work migrants in Israel today, less than 0.3% of the population, and less than a third of the number of legal work migrants.

In comparison, the US right now has 11 million undocumented workers, or about 3.5% of its population. The proportion between them and legal migrants is 10:1, in favor of the “illegals”. That is how the numbers look for country that attracts work migrants that the government does not want to accept.

In case you were wondering whether these numbers are the result of the success of draconian measures, you need look no further than the new prison mentioned above, or the wall the government is building along the Egyptian border, at huge expense, to see that no one is letting up. This is because the figures that really matter in Israel’s immigration policy are denominated in currency units.

Nickels and Dimes

Israel needs outside labor, because as it has grown richer, fewer citizens are willing to do the less pleasant jobs in home care, agriculture and construction. After a quarter century of occupation, Israel decided 20 years ago that it wants to sever itself from the Palestinians, and has therefore gradually reduced the number of guest workers coming from the Occupied Territories.

That has forced  it to search further afield, bringing in workers who now lived far away from their homelands and families, and could not return to them every weekend or every night, as the Palestinians could. They do not just work here, they live here.

The longer they stay, the more they know and understand the country, the more confident they become in pursuing their rights and demanding better conditions. This makes them more expensive for their employers and less profitable for the firms that bring them here, and contract out their services. Much of these contractors’ profits come from the huge fees that migrants pay them in order to get their work visa. This creates a massive financial incentive for a high rate of turnover: for every expelled worker, a new one comes in, bringing in a huge new fee for his or her work visa.

Cruelty for profit

These incentives largely explain the many cruelties and outrages of Israel’s immigration policy. Expelling children and mothers of Israeli citizens makes sense because they are likelier to stay and put down roots. Refugees present much the same problem. Although Israel flouts many international laws protecting them, it is still leery of massive and blatant violations. Therefore, most of them cannot be deported while they face persecution and murder in the countries from which they flee.

That means it is harder to exploit them, and employing them comes at the expense of another worker which can bring a huge windfall to the contractor that “imports” her. So, first, Israel has decided to recognize almost no one as a refugee. In 2008-2009, 3,211 people have sought refugee status. Only 52 cases have been reviewed [Hebrew], and only three people were granted refugee status. That is less than one tenth of one percent.

Denying people refugee status, simply by not reviewing their requests, means they cannot work in the meanwhile. But if they stay, they might still work illegally, so the government has set out to make their lives a living hell. It makes entry difficult and dangerous, exposing them to heinous crimes committed by “people smugglers”. If they eventually get in, they face Kafkaesque bureaucratic hassles [pdf], intimidation, harassment and geographic delimitation. They cannot get a legal job, and are ineligible even for the most basic public services, let alone social benefits.

A self-reinforcing cycle

It would be immensely surprising if this traumatized population, officially marginalized and denied any legal way to subsist in a foreign country, strikingly different from the places they came from, would prosper. Reliable information is, as I noted, hard to come by. Anecdotal evidence suggests many refugees beat the odds, even opening successful businesses employing Israeli citizens [pdf pop-up]. Many do not, although aside from the occasional nuisance, it seems most of the price for maladjustment is paid by other refugees.

Nonetheless, being black, they are highly visible in Israel and heavily concentrated geographically in several poor neighborhoods in the country’s center, the only places where they can find both affordable housing and (illegal) employment. The long-suffering residents of these neighborhoods are then cynically exploited by officials [Hebrew] and extremists. Their xenophobia is enflamed, both to justify the harsh immigration policy, and to exploit the refugees as scapegoats for social ills that existed long before they came. Ingeniously, policy is justified by the very ill effects it had created and bolstered by the hate it has enflamed; and one of the newest Israel policy myths lives on.

Another new myth, directly related to this one, as the above passage suggests, will be explored in the next post of these series, which will examine myth #4: “Israel’s social safety net is better than that in the US.”

Read more in this series:

All previous posts in Top 10 Israeli Policy Myths:

Introducing: Top ten myths about Israeli policy
Myth #1: Security is our first concern
Myth #2: Separation between Jews and Arabs is not racist

Professor Yisrael Aumann, an Israeli laureate of the Nobel Prize in Economics, delivered on Wednesday a “master class” in the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem, under the title “Peace in the Middle East: A Game Theorist’s Perspective”. The Jerusalem Post devoted an entire article just to Aumann’s presentation, crowning him as “an out-of-the-box thinker with a pronounced though slightly cockeyed sense of humor and a gift for delivering shockers.”

These shockers included praise for Helen Thomas, the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD, and Obama’s rather obvious argument that the “belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it.” Out of the box, indeed. Yet, despite the lack of creativity, Aumann’s rehashing of right-wing talking points, which his presentation apparently turned out to be, is illuminating in several ways.

Take, for example, the issue of educating Palestinians to support peace. This was one of Aumann’s top priorities:

We have to insist on the Oslo provision calling for education for peace and tolerance. It’s the most important provision in the Oslo Accords – and the least remembered… The most intelligent kids swallow all the hate and then they become the leaders… We have to start a big campaign for the way children are taught in the territories.

Israelis have been blasting the Palestinian Authority for not doing enough to stop terrorism since it was founded. In recent years, however, under Abu Mazen’s leadership, it has become increasingly harder to make this argument. The PA has tightened security cooperation with Israel, and has massively clamped down on terrorist cells and organization. This is one of the factors contributing to a sharp decline in Palestinian attacks and Israeli fatalities in recent years.

So, after this excuse has been taken away from them, Israeli governments have had to resurrect the old hobbyhorse of incitement and education. Beyond the hypocrisy, the argument simply makes no sense. What Aumann neglected to mention is that Israel controlled the Palestinian education system, from the start of the occupation in 1967 to the establishment of the PA in 1994, for 27 years. All Palestinians between the ages of 24 and 59 have spent at least some time in Israeli-controlled classrooms, and those between the ages of 35 and 50 have spent their entire time in school under Israeli control.

According to Aumann’s logic, these people – who also happen to dominate the ranks of school teachers and principals, and education ministry officials – should have been strong advocates for peace. Perhaps hate for Israel has more to do with the occupation and Israeli policies than with education?

According to the Jerusalem Post, “making concessions and gestures, expelling thousands from their homes as happened with the people of Gush Katif will bring war, not peace, [Aumann] declared, stating that there was a great body of historical proof to support his claim.” The main proof is, of course, the Munich agreement of 1938, which Israelis never tire of mentioning in this context.

Of course, the idea that you must make peace without concessions and gestures is strange, to say the least. Just by looking at the past two decades, one can easily see that conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Balkans were all resolved based precisely on these notions.

Aumann was generous enough to extend his opposition to expelling people from their homes to Palestinians as well as Jews. He also opposed collective punishments such as denying electricity, and excessive restrictions on movement and commerce. He was, careful, however, to couch this advice in general terms, avoiding condemnation of the numerous measures [pdf] Israel has adopted [pdf] that ignore it completely. That is a very popular Israeli sleight of hand: we are all in favor of these things, but have nothing to say when the opposite is being done by our own government.

In the same spirit, Aumann, perhaps employing his “cockeyed sense of humor” took care to integrate yet two more conflicting clichés in his talk: “If you want peace, be prepared for war,” and “[t]here are no positive consequences of war.” While this combination might work in game theory simulations, these messages hardly make for the consistent education for peace that Aumann claims to advocate.