Haaretz (Tel Aviv)

Time is on Israel's side
By Ephraim Inbar

Many Israelis believe time is not on their side and are therefore looking to change the status quo, even unilaterally. And yet, an analysis of Zionist action rather than Zionist rhetoric reveals that playing for time was one of the mainstays of Israel's national strategy. David Ben–Gurion understood that Israel was too weak to impose a peace settlement on the Arabs and that it would simply have to wait until the other side would recognize perforce the reality of a Jewish state.

Unfortunately, Palestinians still have their pipe dreams of inundating Israel with refugees or winning sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Despite the festive declarations from the Israeli peace camp that we have a partner, it is obvious that peace cannot be achieved today. This is mainly because of the Palestinians' inability to establish a stable political entity that would be willing to suppress those who oppose Israel's existence.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has also concluded that before 2020 there is no chance of seeing a Palestinian leadership ready to make the concessions that are necessary for a comprehensive agreement. What this means is that Israel has to go on playing for time until the Palestinians are ripe for the kind of peace that will be acceptable to Israel.Past conjectures about demographic trends that affect the numerical relationship between Jews and Arabs have generally turned out to be wrong. But even if they turned out to be accurate this time, they do not add up to a demographic threat and are not relevant to preserving a Jewish majority in the Land of Israel.

It makes no difference how many Palestinian babies are born in the Gaza Strip, in Nablus or in Jenin, if Israel has no intention of annexing those areas. The Jewish majority in Israel is not affected by the number of Arabs who live outside the country.

Since 1993 the political leadership in Israel has moved in the direction of partitioning the Land of Israel. The majority of Likud leaders have also accepted the partition idea and ruled out the possibility of permanent Israeli rule over the Palestinian population centers.

However, as long as Palestinians continue to offer a fertile ground for terrorism against Israel, Jews will have to intervene militarily within the Palestinian population, including their urban centers. Israel will have to get used to living with fluctuations in the Israeli presence in the territories, unless Egypt and Jordan assume responsibility for the Palestinian territories in the near future. The demography issue is not relevant to the need to defend Israel.

Palestinians themselves should have a clear interest in drastically reducing their consistently high birthrate. According to Palestinian economists, the current birthrate will oblige the Palestinian economy to grow permanently by seven to eight percent a year just to supply work to all the young people who will enter the labor force. A growth rate on that scale is not within the grasp of the Palestinian economy, even if the flow of money from abroad increases.

Indeed, we can expect a reduction of this aid to the Palestinians as a result of the demand for greater transparency and as a result of the appearance of other areas of need, such as Iraq. The Palestinians, like the Egyptians and other Muslim countries, will be obliged to encourage supervision over the birth rate if they want to escape protracted poverty. Time will thus weaken the Palestinian entity unless time is exploited intelligently for a change in the demographic trends.

Time is also on Israel's side because the majority of the civilized world has at long last understood that the Palestinian national movement is in need of a thorough reform and new leadership. The Palestinians' main method of operation – terrorism – does not enjoy international legitimacy.

Moreover, the Palestinians have not moved any closer to establishing a state than they were in September 2000. In fact, their condition is worse from every point of view and there are no signs of improvement on the horizon.

Finally, the spirit of the time, which lauds the values of democracy and the free market, leans more to the Israeli said than the Palestinian. The Jews have exploited time better than the Arabs, and this seems set to continue.

The writer teaches political science at Bar–Ilan University and is director of the Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Research.