Israel Has Some Wonderful News to Ears Seeking Something Positive

 

There were a few tidbits of news which may have snuck by many of us during the rollercoaster of one’s emotional equilibrium of the last couple of weeks. It happens after Pesach where we have in rapid succession Holocaust Remembrance Day and then the topsy-turvy of Memorial Day immediately followed by Independence Day where we for from the solemn remembrance of those we have lost, both soldier and terror victim, to have brought us to this day and at sundown of this day of remembrance we immediately shift gears, pop the clutch and within a few dizzying hours we fire off fireworks and are celebrating our hearts out in joyous rapture celebrating like tomorrow may never come the anniversary of the rebirth of the nation of Israel. During all of this some lists and reports came along with these days. The first is likely the less critical in importance, but it is still nice that somebody outside of Israel took notice. It turns out that last year Israel rose a couple of more slots towards the top of the list of happiest nation of people on Earth. Such steps are difficult once a nation hits the rarified atmosphere of being within the top twenty. Israel is about to enter an even more exclusive club as she has made it to number eleven happiest nation. This is not an expected slot for Israel to hold when one reads the accountings in the regular news every day about Israel in the mainstream media but then again, many of us have known all along that they had a slight bias against Israel. Apparently being demonized in the media day and night has not taken off the shine of our smiling faces and cheerful outlooks on life. But wait, there is even better news.

 

Believe it or not, the old story about the “demographic time bomb” has also been laid to rest. The birth rates for Israel also were released recently and the news should fill every heart with joy if they are believers in the future of Israel. The predictions of doom and gloom claiming that Israel would soon be overrun by the Arab superior fertility rates have been struck what might be a fatal blow. The significant figure was the fact that Israel has reached a population total of 8.345 million people. This includes the births of the last year which were numbered at 136,000 Jewish births and 40,000 Arab births. Compare those numbers to the 1995 statistics where one finds that there were 80,000 Jewish births and 36,000 Arab births. This means that the Jewish population inside Israel has increased from a ratio of 2:1 to now an ever more respectable ratio of 3:1, imagine that. Further, since 1995 the Israel rate of Arab births has increased by ten percent while Jewish birth rate has increased by over forty percent. That is a rate of change respectably higher than have Arab births. The immediate response from the ever seeking the darkest possible news with which to bludgeon Israelis and their supporters into submission would be that these numbers are for within Green Line Israel and ignore the numbers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

 

OK, let us go look into the reports given on these numbers but instead of using the inflated numbers provided by Abbas to attempt to frighten Jews that their days are numbered, let’s use numbers from World Bank. According to the World Bank, the birthrate in Judea, Samaria and Gaza has declined from as high as 6.5 in 1990 down to about 4.0 today. Quoting Ambassador Yoram Ettinger speaking on the reasons behind the decrease in the Arab women’s rate of births per individual, it is mostly a result of higher levels of education such that, “Instead of having kids as early as 15, they are waiting until their mid-20s and that number is approaching age 30.” Additionally, “family planning has proliferated throughout the Muslim world – possibly because of economic reasons but maybe also the increased standard of living.” Ambassador Ettinger concludes, “The surge in Jewish fertility has to do with communal responsibility, patriotism and roots.” There is an interactive graph where you can plug in any set of greater regions or their individual countries and contrast and compare nearly anything you desire provided by Google. By doing a comparison of the individual groupings of nations Israel was ahead of every grouping with the sole exception of Sub-Saharan Africa. Every area, even that of Sub-Saharan Africa at a birth rate per woman at an astounding 5.11, has shown a serious and marked downturn in their population statistics from their high at 6.79 births per women and with every other national group reaching a reproductive ratio of between thee births per woman and just below 2 births per woman with the highest coming in at 2.75 births per women for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the lowest coming in at 1.72 births per women for Europe and Central Asia. East Asia and Pacific came in at 1.82 births per women followed closely by North America at 1.85 births per women with the next being Latin America and the Caribbean at 2.18 births per women, thus being the first region to be equal to or above replacement rate in reproduction. Continuing we find the World’s average at 2.47 births per women with next being South Saia at 2.59 births per women followed by, as noted above, MENA at 2.75 births per women, and also reported above, Sub-Saharan Africa having by far the highest at 5.11 births per women. Meanwhile, Israel had hit a highpoint of 3.97 births per women in 1960, the first year figures are provided and ending at 3.04 births per women which was a rebound slightly higher than the low of 2.7 births per women in 1992. One can expect that the numbers for Sub-Saharan Africa to drop precipitously at some future date which will be marked by greater levels of education and the industrialization of their societies after which the human population of planet Earth, or if you prefer the population doomsday predictors’ favorite phrase, spaceship Earth will finally reach a steady level of minimal growth with times of feast having a steady if slow increase and times of turmoil and frustrations giving a slow rate of decline.

 

When one looks at the birth rates per woman of the world compared to the individual sectors it becomes readily apparent that it is the high but still dropping rate of births per woman of Sub-Saharan Africa which force the rate for the entire world to a higher than otherwise expected level and once they drop to the range of between 1.7 and 3.3 births per woman then the World replacement rate will fall just under 2.5 births per woman, a steady level of measured and manageable growth ever so slightly above replacement rate numbers. Equally important has been the decline towards replacement rate rather than the far higher rates over the Israeli reproductive rates for Judea, Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza which had buried the demographic time-bomb which has been touted and predicted by those who would seek out any statistic to prove that Israel had no choice but to give the Palestinians anything they demanded if they would only permit the Israeli Jews to survive and keep their ever diminishing numbers against the super-reproductive rate of the Arab Palestinians which promised to drown them in a sea of births. This does not for an instance mean that we will stop hearing the sky is falling doomsayers from touting old data over and over ad nauseum predicting the demographic destruction of Israel because they need to have something to show to back up their demands that Israel completely surrender and beg and grovel for table scraps which the rest of the World including the Arabs who would reproduce Israel into extinction or the Europeans who would end Israel through an embargo if Israel does not comply and surrender or the United Nations will bury Israel in paperwork responding to the human rights charges which would end if only Israel would surrender to the Arab Palestinian human rights demands or any of the plethora of doom and gloom woe is Israel who will be subsumed by whatever calamity that can be found in the statistics if they do not surrender to the Arabs as is their sole chance to survive-mongers. The frustration those who seek ever more diverse ways to attack Israel and claim that Israel is a pariah amongst the nations, the new Apartheid, a genocidal raging, the force behind every calamity, the reason for every ill, the one holdout from a past era, the remaining anachronism amongst the nations and whatever else that can be dreamed up from the furtive minds of conspiracies and intrigues who will borrow through mountains of statistics even to the point of reformatting them in such a manner as to provide the data they require to damn Israel once and for all. It is at this point we must stop and pay homage to the originators of the quotation, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” which many attribute to Mark Twain who himself attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli thus we must conclude that it is insightful, humorous, erudite and witty as both men were long and stood tall in all those areas abilities. The one thing that those who are in love and pay tribute to the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland, you will never run out of reasons to need to defend her nor will you ever reach a period where there are none who seek her destruction until the day arrives that all the Earth finds peace and harmony and are ruled from Jerusalem, not by the Jewish people but ruled by a divine source.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The World Has Chosen and So Shall It Pay

 

Once upon a time not so long ago Israel was the plucky little nation that could. What could that little nation the size of New Jersey do? Well, it could survive genocidal attacks from all fronts and several nations despite being grossly outnumbered and facing overwhelming odds. It could manage to have a capitalist system which included a core of social programs which cared for its people and through socialist structured kibbutzim was able to produce food and goods to such an extent as to export some of the world’s finest produce. Israel was that enigma wrapped in a puzzle surrounded by a query contained in a whirlwind of options that managed to survive. Israel used to be the proof that dreams can come to fruition and survive even against the harshest of threatening neighborhoods. So, what went awry? When did the train jump the tracks?

 

The answer is even more surprising than what one might imagine and so surprising that it is obviously simple, Israel was too successful and was making things work while those around the world kept falling behind by comparison. Israel was successful by taking the opposite road than the rest of the world had chosen. And Israel was pilloried by a sinister plot hatched to destroy her by the most vile measures of lies, innuendo, spite and infamy. Israel became the target upon which every nation, every peoples, every entity could measure their resentment against and join together to destroy this nation of the Jews, this Jewish entity amongst the nations of the world. Israel was to be treated to an unseen anti-Semitic assault not seen for almost two-thousand years. Israel was being returned to her former glory amongst the nations of the known world, of her known world, the nations singled out by every empire, ever conqueror, every abysmal force of contempt and evil which could arise from the human condition. Israel became the excuse for the failures of the everyman, the causation of every calamity, the target for all hatreds, disgusts, accusations, vile temperament which denied every definition as it refused to break no matter how twisted, bent, beaten or broken, Israel survived and came to return and thrive again.

 

It took a small amount of time before the obvious became noticed and once noticed became the raison d’etre for a hatred based in anti-Semitism but leveled at an international level equal to the forerunner which was the force spawned and inspiring the full force with which the Ancient Egyptians brought to borne against it as did subsequent powers as the Philistines, the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and the Roman Empire. The destructive forces and vile contempt did not end with the simple dispersal of the Judean remnant of the Israelites to the furthest corners throughout the great expanse of Rome, no, Rome also continued a level of persecution against these shreds of a peoples, these shards which remained as they continued to practice and perform individually the rites which would hold them as a people throughout the coming ages.

 

In this Diaspora the one family of Judah, the one tribe of the Jews became two separate entities, the Ashkenazim of central Europe and the Sephardim of Spain and across all of Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) and eventually expelled from Spain with the Inquisition. Throughout these periods the Jews would face perils as they were beaten down and persecuted beginning with the immediate forces of the Roman Empire which had placed them strewn across the known world, followed by the Byzantine Empire, the Crusaders, the early Muslims in their origins of Mecca and Medina starting with the Battle of Khaybar, the Crusaders, the Caliph of Baghdad, al-Muqtadi imposition of Dhimmitude forced Jewish males to wear distinctive yellow mark upon their headgear to denote their Jewish religion and a weight around their neck marked Dhimmi and was the initial use of a yellow mark which would later become the Nazi source for the marking of Jews with the yellow star on their clothing, a series of pogroms and expulsions marked the lives of both the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim to such extents that it would be difficult to list all these events as in some cases, many probably still unknown, every Jew residing in a town, city, fiefdom or other demarked area might have been put to the sword, burned at the stake or other form of mass execution leaving no survivor to tell of the events thus passing without note unless related by the history of the designated area cleansed of its Jews.

 

Some of the more famous such events such as the Spanish Inquisition where Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism and if suspected of continuing to practice Judaism stealthily within the confines of their homes they were dragged into the street or town square and executed often in as horrific a manner as possible. Across Europe the Jews were often burned at the stake or murdered in other manners or simply expelled as the plague struck the Jewish sections of towns nowhere nearly as hard as it did the Christian areas due to the regimented cleaning of the Jewish homes annually for Passover when removing Chametz (leavened breads cakes etc.) thus less rodents and fleas carrying the plague existed in the Jewish areas by comparison. The locals would often claim that this was due to the Jews having contaminated the Christians wells causing their greater rate of plague and a pogrom would be organized which often after torturing and murdering some of the Jews the rest were forced from their location forced to flee with what they were capable of taking with them. Jews often found their families having to decide what to take and how long they should linger packing and remain safe.

 

In more modern times the main persecutions were propagated by the Czars who went so far as to write the book “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” which described the plot by the Jews to rule the world which was preposterous but even today in parts of the world these writings are still produced as proof of a Jewish plot to rule the world through devious and manipulative means. When the Communists replaced the Czars, despite many leading Jews assisting the rise to power, the Jews still were separated for special treatment and eventually simply persecuted outright. There was Nazi Germany and the Holocaust which destroyed over one-third of the Jewish world’s population, probably one of the greatest decimations of Jewish lives since the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel which was conquered by the Assyrians never to be recovered until modern times as these disparate tribes are being found throughout the globe and being brought back within the fold in Israel. The latest threat is growing in power and gaining weapons capable of unbelievable destruction by Iran and the outcome between Israel and the Iranian threat is still to be decided. It is looking more dire each passing day and one wonders how Israel will be able to find a path for her survival once again.

 

Facing the hatreds and attempts of continued decimations the individual Jew remained an identity always apart, always different, always struggling and striving towards that promised day their scroll, their Torah gave hope to the belief that eventually the dry bones would face one final crushing blow from which they would miraculously begin to grow sinews as they reassembled in the form of human skeletons and would grow flesh and appear as the flesh and bone remnants of a people from the Holocaust, the Shoah, and would grow muscles and return to their national homelands where the early Zionist had already gathered and prepared for their arrival. And then came the great purges throughout the rest of the nations of the world, the nations of MENA and the Sephardim followed on the heels of the Ashkenazim and were brought into their homelands and rejoined their family. The dry bones finally regrown were capable of further miracles every day and as the miracles grew and so the favor from what many referred to as the fates, but we knew was G0d our Father and our Staff when we grew weary and in need of support and Who would give us the power to wield that staff when set upon by other nations and once again His favor did shine upon us. The miracles happen in small increments daily with the little miracles, those miracles which explain the otherwise unexplainable because, as Torah teaches us, there is no such thing as coincidence, luck, or happenstance; just G0d’s will to shower every single day with His saving grace and love.

 

Then there are the much larger miracles, the ones we hear and can only take in the shock of the magnitude of certain unexplainable events. The victory in the Six Day War in June of 1967 was an obvious series of miracles as virtually everything went as well or better than expected. Even the altering of plans to fight on an additional front upon Jordan entering the conflict on the second day, or later during the first twenty-four hours, was successful and did not hinder the front against Egypt from where the reinforcements were redirected to go into Jerusalem where they made our sacred home back in Israeli hands. There was the eventual victory in the Yom Kippur War in October of 1983 when initially it appeared as if Israel was to be overrun. Then there was an utterly inexplicable event which was but a single instance which could have ended so poorly but whose circumstance was as beyond belief as was the saving grace which a battery of the Iron Dome system were to witness. We first reported on this event in our article How to Fight Terrorist Fanatics Unless You’re Israel where we quoted the story as reported in Israel Today titled “Iron Dome Operator: God Moved Missile We Couldn’t Hit”. Here is the story once again;

 

“A missile was fired from Gaza. Iron Dome precisely calculated [its trajectory]. We know where these missiles are going to land down to a radius of 200 meters. This particular missile was going to hit either the Azrieli Towers, the Kirya (Israel’s equivalent of the Pentagon) or [a central Tel Aviv railway station]. Hundreds could have died.”

“We fired the first [interceptor]. It missed. Second [interceptor]. It missed. This is very rare. I was in shock. At this point we had just four seconds until the missile lands. We had already notified emergency services to converge on the target location and had warned of a mass-casualty incident.”

“Suddenly, Iron Dome (which calculates wind speeds, among other things) shows a major wind coming from the east, a strong wind that…sends the missile into the sea. We were all stunned. I stood up and shouted, ‘There is a G0d!’ I witnessed this miracle with my own eyes. It was not told or reported to me. I saw the hand of G0d send that missile into the sea.”

 

Now, that was a miracle similar in kind and impact which was Bible worthy as thousands of lives were spared and the lack of other explanations was impossible. This was evidence of the hand of G0d at work as a pick-up in the wind is insufficient to move a rocket that far off its trajectory that late in its traverse such as to push the rocket a mere few feet but over a mile from its course in the final half mile or less of its traversal to target. What better place to end this article than with the realities of the force and faith in the L0rd our G0d and G0d of the universe for all people to love and share his love and acceptance of each and every last one of us no matter our past as long as we are making efforts to improve ourselves and be a shining example in His eyes.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Campus Attitudes Indicator of Future Societal Hatreds

 

David Horowitz Freedom Center has launched the “Jew Hatred on Campus” campaign which produced a list of the “Top Ten” offenders guilty of allowing harassment against Jewish students. The top ten universities played host to numerous incidents of anti-Jewish actions, such as Israeli Apartheid Weeks, interrupting university activities by staging mock “checkpoints” on campus, campus speakers that call for the destruction of the Jewish state, as well as verbal and/or physical harassment and violence against Jewish and pro-Israel students.

 

Jew Hatred on Campus founder David Horowitz stated, “These anti-Semitic incidents occur on university property, often with the support of university funds, despite the fact that such behavior is explicitly forbidden under campus codes of conduct. We made the decision to form ‘Jew Hatred on Campus’ to expose anti-Semitic student groups who support or are associated with known terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and which call for the destruction of the Jewish State. These activities against Jewish and pro-Israel students would not be tolerated by university administrators if they were committed against students from any other ethnic group. But because Jews are the target, they have been largely ignored. It is an obligation of university administrators to recognize and condemn acts of anti-Semitism by campus hate groups and to withdraw campus privileges and university support from them.”

 

Now, without further delay, here are the top ten listings of those colleges and universities found to have the highest antagonism and biases anti-Israel, anti-Zionism and ordinary anti-Semitism which led to a threat based attitude towards Jewish and pro-Israel students endangering the safety of such students. “Jew Hatred on Campus” top ten list reveals some very noticeable names as well as some surprises and also some well-respected educational institutions which permitted and even enabled and abated such animosities leaving a very poisonous atmosphere which stifled and had serious negative impacts according to extensive surveys and various data collection techniques revealed:

1) Columbia University
2) Cornell University
3) George Mason University
4) Loyola University Chicago
5) Portland State University
6) San Diego State University
7) San Francisco State University
8) Temple University
9) University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
10) Vassar College

 

These increases over the last few years have caused some Jewish students to drop from their first choice college or university due to the negative and even hostile environment which made them feel threatened and uncomfortable on campus. As David Horowitz stated, these actions of hatred often occurred “with the support of university funds, despite the fact that such behavior is explicitly forbidden under campus codes of conduct.” Somewhat deeper in his short fact-filled statement he was quoted stating, “These activities against Jewish and pro-Israel students would not be tolerated by university administrators if they were committed against students from any other ethnic group. But because Jews are the target, they have been largely ignored.” Where many have claimed that the reemergence of anti-Semitism in both its traditional form and its closely related new anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism or anti-Israel as denying only the Jewish Peoples not to have the same rights to self-government is definitely another face of the same monster simply hiding behind righteousness when calm discourse breaks down and the full extent of rage becomes revealed and easily identifiable as the pure hatred of the Jewish Peoples. This is an unfortunate hatred for one to face, especially when so young and often unlikely to have sufficient knowledge to defend themselves from the prepared sheet of memorized items with which to launch their diatribe of accusations. Despite reports which make it appear that this is a modern problem which had lain dormant for half a century or longer in much of the world after the extent and the horrors of the Holocaust had been revealed, I had the misfortune being a blonde haired blue eyed Jew which looks gentile to the point that nearly anybody else compared to me would win the look Jewish contest which allowed for many to confide their dislike and even raw hatreds towards Jews. Had anti-Semitism lie dormant for decades, mostly but far from completely as there has been that constant tinge that refused to die which was exemplified in the Chicago suburb of Skokie when the National Socialist Party of America (derived from the American Nazi Party) won its court battle to parade through the heavily Jewish section of town and immediately in front of a Holocaust survivor’s home. Despite winning their court battle, in the end they marched in Chicago instead. Still this was a victory for hate speech, a victory for free speech, and horrifying for one Holocaust survivor. The entire series of events was made into a feature length movie titled “Skokie” and starring Danny Kaye, John Rubinstein, Carl Reiner, Kim Hunter, Eli Wallach and Brian Dennehy.

 

The rapid increase in anti-Semitic hatreds once again and the fact that it appears to be growing fastest on the college and university campuses is distressing in so many ways. Anti-Semitism has begun to spread onto the campus of Brandeis University and City University of New York (CUNY), which are two schools which have a Jewish history spread back to their founding with Brandeis, which was named for the late Louis D. Brandeis, the first Jewish Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, even having Zionism written into its founding mission statement. It was once held that simply looking at our university campuses, you get a glimpse into the future as the students there are the leaders of tomorrow. If that statement is true, then our future as a tolerant, multicultural and intelligent people is doomed. The political correctness found on many college and university campuses is anything but acceptive and often is exclusively dogmatic and selectively defined as to what is politically correct by binding to far leftist ideals and slogans such as group-think to define their efforts. The acceptable ideas on most campuses appears to be a message in a bottle where holding any other view is defined as an abomination. Whether your ideas will be accepted at your university depends on numerous functions and ideas, all of which are just featured prominently on your application.

 

On no subjects is this more evident than the Middle East with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement and Muslim Brotherhood sponsored groups. Be it because the Muslim world, and particularly the Arab Muslim world, donates billions of dollars to build entire buildings and buy other necessities for universities in exchange for control over, or even the establishing of, Departments of Middle East Studies and the chair that goes along with that honor; by literally bribing to gain these positions these departments become centers which spread the ideology of Islam while concurrently defaming Israel positing that Israel is a stolen and illegal entity and that the Jews have no actual claim to anything in the Middle East and that the ancient Hebrews became today’s Arab Muslims or all died out and that the Jews are all interlopers who actually trace their lineage back to a King of the Khazars in the area of Turkey today who had his people adopt Judaism in the eighth century, about the same time as Mohammad established Islam, a very convenient coincidence. Genetic testing has proven that both Ashkenazi and Sephardim Jews have Middle East ancestry. This theory also does not explain why the Sephardim Jews who make up approximately half of the Israeli Jewish population are not entitled to their ancient homelands even if the Ashkenazi might have a questionable claim. Almost all the claims against European Jews do nothing to discount the claim of the Jews, many who were forced from their homes and forced to sacrifice almost all their belongings when their Muslim national leaders forced them out by threat of pogrom or even laws passed forcing them out have no claims to the lands of Israel. Still, this is the subject line taught across the United States and Europe in many universities.

 

Concurrently to these teachings you have the establishing of Muslim and Palestinian groups which have in turn established a series of activities with the singular aim of disestablishing the legality of Israel or at least causing students to question and eventually reject the claims of the Jewish People to their homelands. This is established with a combination of very well practiced and advanced campaigns combined on playing on historically established anti-Semitic tropes, slogans and defamations. They play on themes that the Jews have been chased from every nation as they destroy any nation from within that harbors them. Somehow they are unable to explain why the United States has succeeded despite having the second largest population by size in the world only recently exceeded by the numbers of Jews living in Israel. This last leg of the demonization of the Israel primarily and the Jewish People secondarily completes the efforts to conspire against Israel and the Jews leading to the problems documented by David Horowitz’s “Jew Hatred on Campus” research group and their top ten colleges and universities offenders guilty of allowing harassment against Jewish students. It would be a great hope that this listing might shame some college and university leadership to take steps to remedy this problem but the continuous flow of mostly Saudi Arabian and the other Gulf oil states monies into these universities and colleges that they will remain forever bought as long as oil remains as lucrative as it has proven in our world. The sole path to ending this horrific conspiracy would be for the students themselves to reject this propaganda, but that is something probably beyond hope as they too face the moneyed campaign demonizing Israel and the Jews and for some reason anti-Semitism seems to have its own allure and has throughout the last four-thousand years of human history. It really is a sad but true tale that tells us a lot about the human situation that mankind has never been capable of shaking off this stain on humanity. It is not for lack of knowledge as they know of this evil’s existence, so it must be due to a level of warmth and satisfaction derived by this hatred which assists in fueling its red hot slavery to the concept of the daemon Jew while ignoring the Biblical promises granting the Jewish People the Promised Lands into perpetuity .

 

Beyond the Cusp