{"id":278212,"date":"2023-12-17T08:21:32","date_gmt":"2023-12-17T08:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=278212"},"modified":"2023-12-19T07:44:49","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T07:44:49","slug":"the-war-in-gaza-its-not-about-hamas-its-about-demographics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=278212","title":{"rendered":"The War in Gaza: It&#8217;s Not About Hamas. It&#8217;s About Demographics"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Mike Whitney \u2013 The Unz Review Dec 16, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>We\u2019ve been told repeatedly that the goal of Israel\u2019s operation in Gaza is to \u201cdefeat Hamas\u201d. But is that true? We don\u2019t think it is. We don\u2019t think that any reasonable person would attempt to eradicate a militant organization by laying to waste vast swaths of the country while killing tens of thousands of innocent people. That is not how one garners support for one\u2019s cause nor is it an effective strategy for defeating the enemy. Instead, it is a policy that is guaranteed to horrify allies and critics alike greatly undermining the operation\u2019s chances of success. And that\u2019s why we don\u2019t believe that Israel\u2019s attack on Gaza has anything to do with Hamas. We think it\u2019s a smokescreen that\u2019s being used to divert attention from the real objectives of the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>And, what might those \u201creal objectives\u201d be?<\/p>\n<p>The real objectives relate to an issue that is never discussed in the media, but is the primary factor driving events. Demographics.<\/p>\n<p>As we all know, Israel\u2019s long-term plan is to incorporate Gaza and the West Bank into Greater Israel. They want to control all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The problem is, however, that if they annex the occupied territories without disposing of the people, then the Palestinian population will equal or exceed that of the Jews which would lead to the demise of the Jewish state. That is the basic problem in a nutshell. Check out this article that helps to explain what\u2019s going on:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>Demography is a matter of national security in Israel<\/strong> and a key indicator for Israeli-Palestinian relations and their outlook: <strong>demographic trends in Israel are rapidly shifting and this will impact prospects for violence and conflict resolution.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>As of late 2022, over seven million Israelis lived in Israel and the West Bank, and seven million Palestinians lived in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Israel and East Jerusalem<\/strong>, a somehow integrated region referred to as \u201cGreater Israel\u201d by Jewish right-wing activists \u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">A demographic bomb is already ticking.<strong> Israeli Jews experience an existential fear to be outgrown by the Palestinian population,<\/strong> and this is further instrumentalized by right-wing nationalist political entrepreneurs. <strong>Demography lies at the core of the territorial dispute between Jews and Arabs<\/strong>, as the two nations are waging a major war on numbers, aimed at weaponizing fertility rates to turn them into a predictive assumption of victory.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">As the current <strong>Israeli right-wing government is laying the ground for the de facto annexation<\/strong> of the West Bank\u2019s Area C, <strong>demography has been one of the tools employed to reassure the Jewish public opinion that Judea and Samaria could still be integrated into Israel, while keeping a Jewish demographic majority.<\/strong> However, demography remains a struggle for survival and an uphill battle for Israel. This is especially true if Israel were to progress with the Palestinian Area C annexation.<a href=\"https:\/\/aspeniaonline.it\/israel-a-demographic-ticking-bomb-in-todays-one-state-reality\/\"> Israel: A Demographic Ticking Bomb in Today\u2019s One-State Reality\u201d,<\/a> <em>Aspenia<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">16k killed (7k kids),40k injured, 1.8ml IDPs, 60% civilian infrastructure gone. No food, water, medication. Just bombs dropping.<\/p>\n<p>In the face of all this, Congresspeople of the only country who can stop this, legislated that antizionism=antisemitism.<\/p>\n<p>Alternative reality, it is. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4HY3JpLzr9\">https:\/\/t.co\/4HY3JpLzr9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FranceskAlbs\/status\/1732297556535713856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 6, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As an American, diversity might not seem like such a big deal. But to many Israelis, it\u2019s pure strychnine. Zionists, in particular, see growth in the Arab population as a \u201cdemographic time-bomb\u201d that threatens the future of the Jewish state. And that\u2019s what the Gaza fracas is really all about; getting rid of the people but keeping the land. In fact, the last 75 years of conflict can be reduced to just 8 words, \u201cThey want the land, but not the people.\u201d Here\u2019s more from the Times of Israel:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>Jewish people make up less than 47 percent of all those living west of the Jordan River<\/strong>, an Israeli demographer warned Tuesday, claiming that most of the Israeli population is unaware of the democratic peril the country is sliding into by possibly becoming a ruling minority in the area.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Arnon Soffer, a professor of geography at Haifa University, told Army Radio Tuesday that in addition to the Jewish and Arab populations, he reached his figures by taking into consideration the hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish people residing in Israel who are not citizens.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">According to Soffer, <strong>there are 7.45 million Jews and others along with 7.53 million Arab Israelis and Palestinians living in what he termed the Land of Israel, meaning Israel plus the West Bank and Gaza Strip<\/strong>. When the number of non-Israeli nationals is taken into consideration, it leaves the Jewish proportion at between 46% and 47% of the total, he claimed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">According to Israel\u2019s official Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2021, 9.449 million people live in Israel (including Israelis in West Bank settlements). Of those, 6.982 million (74 percent) are Jewish, 1.99 million (21%) are Arab and 472,000 (5%) are neither\u2026. The Palestinian Bureau of Statistics puts the West Bank Palestinian population at a little over 3 million, and the Gaza population at just over 2 million.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Soffer explained to Army Radio that <strong>although the birthrate has been higher among the Jewish population in recent years, so too is the death rate, meaning the Arab population, which is far younger on average than the Jewish population, is growing faster<\/strong>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/jews-now-a-minority-in-israel-and-the-territories-demographer-says\/\">Jews now a 47% minority in Israel and the territories, demographer says,<\/a> <em>The Times of Israel<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">In just under two months, IDF bombs have destroyed a comparable percentage of buildings in northern Gaza as WW2 allied forces achieved in the space of two years of carpet bombing German cities <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1qFEfpskAM\">pic.twitter.com\/1qFEfpskAM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Thea Riofrancos (@triofrancos) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/triofrancos\/status\/1732394578836390007?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 6, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Imagine, for a minute, that you posted a number of articles on your social media sites that said you thought there were too many blacks or Asians in America. How long do you think it would take before you were either shadow-banned, censored or buried under an avalanche of death threats? But when we look at the contents of the article above, we see that a major newspaper in Israel breezily publishes an article which states in stark terms that the country faces \u201cdemocratic peril\u201d because there are too many Arabs in the areas earmarked for future annexation. How is that not racism?<\/p>\n<p>But this is how the issue is discussed in Israel. Demographics are considered a national security issue, an existential issue, and an issue that will decide the future of the Jewish State. Is it any wonder why the reaction has been so extreme? Is it any wonder why people refer to the fact that there is a large population of Palestinians in Palestine as the \u201cArab problem\u201d? And, of course, once the indigenous population is regarded as a \u201cproblem\u201d, then it is incumbent on the political leaders to conjure-up a solution.<\/p>\n<p>So, what exactly is the solution to the Arab problem?<\/p>\n<p>Why fewer Arabs, of course. Which is why the idea of expelling the Palestinians has a long pedigree in Zionist thinking dating back a full five decades before the establishment of the Jewish state. As it happens, the Arabs were always a problem even when the Jews represented less than 10 percent of the population. Go figure? Check out this comment by the ideological father of political Zionism himself, Theodor Herzl, who wrote the following:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>\u201cWe shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border<\/strong> by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country\u2026 <strong>expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Shockingly, Herzl wrote those words in 1895, 50 years before Israel declared its statehood. And many of the Zionist leaders who followed him shared that same world view, like Israel\u2019s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion who said:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u201cYou are no doubt aware of the [Jewish National Fund\u2019s] activity in this respect. <strong>Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out. In many parts of the country new settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin<\/strong>.\u201d He concluded: \u201cJewish power [in Palestine], which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out this transfer on a large scale.\u201d (1948)<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">True! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lCF4AwSEYg\">pic.twitter.com\/lCF4AwSEYg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Pax Javelin (@PJavelin50975) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PJavelin50975\/status\/1733526386655023328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 9, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And here\u2019s Ben-Gurion again in 1938: <strong>\u201cI support compulsory transfer. I don\u2019t see anything immoral in it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>See how far back this line of reasoning goes? The Zionists were tweaking their ethnic cleansing plans long before Israel had even become a state. And for good reason. They knew that the numbers did not support the prospects for an enduring Jewish State. The only way to square the circle was through compulsory resettlement, otherwise known as \u201ctransfer.\u201d And while that policy might have been repugnant to a great many Jews, a far larger number undoubtedly believed it was a cruel necessity. The preservation of the Jewish State became the highest value permitting behavior that would otherwise be disparaged as unacceptable and immoral. Here\u2019s how Ben Shapiro summed it up in an essay titled \u201cTransfer is Not a Dirty Word\u201d:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">The time for half measures has passed\u2026. Some have rightly suggested that Israel be allowed to decapitate the terrorist leadership of the Palestinian Authority. But this, too, is only a half measure. <strong>The ideology of the Palestinian population is indistinguishable from that of the terrorist leadership.<\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Here is the bottom line: <strong>If you believe that the Jewish state has a right to exist, then you must allow Israel to transfer the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper<\/strong>. It\u2019s an ugly solution, but it is the only solution. And it is far less ugly than the prospect of bloody conflict ad infinitum\u2026.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">The Jews don\u2019t realize that expelling a hostile population is a commonly used and generally effective way of preventing violent entanglements. There are no gas chambers here. It\u2019s not genocide; it\u2019s transfer\u2026.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>It\u2019s time to stop being squeamish. Jews are not Nazis. Transfer is not genocide. And anything else isn\u2019t a solution. <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/\">Transfer is Not a Dirty Word,<\/a> <em>Narkive<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The importance of the Shapiro piece can\u2019t be overstated. First, he explicitly links the future viability of the Jewish state to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Second, he acknowledges that transfer is \u201can ugly solution\u201d, but supports the policy as a necessary evil. And, third, he justifies the implementation of the mass expulsion by putting the entire Palestinian population into the same category as the terrorists. (\u201cThe ideology of the Palestinian population is indistinguishable from that of the terrorist leadership.\u201d) So, in essence, Shapiro is making our case for us. He is candidly admitting that the only policy that will preserve the Jewish state is ethnic cleansing. And judging by developments on the ground, we must assume the Netanyahu government arrived at the same conclusion. The people of Gaza are being bombed, starved and terrorized all with the explicit aim of herding them in the direction of the southern border where they will be forced at gunpoint to flee their historic homeland.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"zxx\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YLEOqOPUTW\">https:\/\/t.co\/YLEOqOPUTW<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OQNdf2rfBN\">pic.twitter.com\/OQNdf2rfBN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; HussainAidroos (@hussainaidroos) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hussainaidroos\/status\/1719193318121230666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 31, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bottom line: The strategic objectives of the Israeli operation in Gaza are entirely different than the stated goal of defeating Hamas.<\/strong> All of the land west of the Jordan River is now being cleared of its native occupants so it can be incorporated into Greater Israel while maintaining a sizable Jewish majority. The demonizing of the Palestinian people \u2013which casts the victims of this onslaught as the perpetrators\u2013 is intended to conceal the underlying policy that is based on racial discrimination. There is no doubt that if the Arabs in Gaza were of Jewish descent, they would be spared the genocide they face today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Additional reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeastmonitor.com\/20231024-israel-think-tank-linked-to-netanyahu-promotes-unique-opportunity-to-ethnically-cleanse-gaza\/\">Senior US lawmakers review plan linking Gaza refugee resettlement to US aid to Arab countries<\/a>, <em>Middle East Monitor<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The proposal, which reportedly has support from senior officials in both parties, calls on the US to condition foreign aid to Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, and Turkey on those countries accepting a certain number of refugees<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeastmonitor.com\/20231017-uk-palestinians-gaza-facing-ethnic-cleansing-on-scale-not-seen-since-the-nakba\/\">UK Palestinians: Gaza facing ethnic cleansing on scale not seen since the Nakba,<\/a> <em>Middle East Monitor<\/em><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2023\/12\/03\/netanyahu-thin-gaza-population\/\">Netanyahu\u2019s Goal for Gaza: \u201cThin\u201d Population \u201cto a Minimum\u201d,<\/a> <em>The Intercept<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The White House requested billions to support refugee resettlement from Ukraine and Gaza in October<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2023\/11\/20\/israels-intelligence-minister-proposes-the-resettlement-of-palestinians-outside-gaza\/\">Israel\u2019s Intelligence Minister Proposes the \u2018Resettlement\u2019 of Palestinians Outside Gaza<\/a>, <em>antiwar.com<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Last month, a leaked document drafted by Gamliel\u2019s Intelligence Ministry proposed pushing all 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza into Egypt, making clear the Netanyahu government is considering the complete ethnic cleansing of the Strip. But Egypt has refused to take in any Palestinian refugees, making Israeli officials seek other alternatives, such as Gazans being absorbed by the West.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mondoweiss.net\/2023\/11\/influential-israeli-national-security-leader-makes-the-case-for-genocide-in-gaza\/\">Influential Israeli national security leader makes the case for genocide in Gaza<\/a>, <em>Mondoweiss<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In an Op-Ed titled \u201cLet\u2019s Not be Intimidated by the World,\u201d Israeli ret. Major General Giora Eiland argues that all Palestinians in Gaza are legitimate targets and that even a \u201csevere epidemic\u201d in Gaza will \u201cbring victory closer.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/imeu.org\/article\/plan-dalet\">Plan Dalet: Blueprint for the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine<\/a>, <em>IMEU<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(Excerpt) Transfer\u201d in Zionist Thinking<\/p>\n<p>From the earliest days of modern political Zionism, its advocates grappled with the problem of creating a Jewish majority state in a part of the world where Palestinian Arabs were the overwhelming majority of the population. For many, the solution became known as \u201ctransfer,\u201d a euphemism for ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.unz.com\/mwhitney\/the-war-in-gaza-its-not-about-hamas-its-about-demographics\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Whitney argues that the Israeli military operation in Gaza is not about destroying Hamas. The objective is ethnic cleansing, pure and simple<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":274513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118,61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-10-gaza-war","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=278212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278214,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278212\/revisions\/278214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/274513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=278212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=278212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=278212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}