Israel's Expansion Through Immigration

ISRAEL’S EXPANSION THROUGH IMMIGRATION

Benjamin Cohen

Mr. Cohen, a London-based Middle East specialist, writes for War Report, a monthly journal monitoring and analyzing international conflicts.

0 n June 8, 1990, a set of guidelines was released by the government of Israel regarding settlement of lands on both sides

of the “Green Line”-the demarcation point separating Israel from the Arab territories occupied after the 1967 war. The main provision stated plainly that “settlement in all parts of the land of Israel is a right and an inseparable part of national security; the government will act to strengthen, broaden and deepen settlement.”’

The struggle over land has always been the most tangible feature of the IsraeWal- estinian/Arab conflict. Since its creation in 1948, the state of Israel has consistently expanded eastward at the primary expense of the Palestinian Arab people, the majority of whom live either under occupation or in exile. The West Bank and Gaza Strip, not yet formally annexed by Israel, have been progressively colonized by Israeli settlers during the last two decades in flagrant vio- lation of international law.2

The arrival of huge numbers of immigrants in Israel from the USSR has pro- vided the boost for a fresh round of land expropriations and renewed settlement. It is the intention of this paper to analyze the causes and consequences of that immigration. In particular, it will focus on the conditions which encourage Jewish citizens to emigrate to Israel, the situation they face on arrival, the role of Israel and the World Zionist Organization in organizing the immigration and the effects of the immigration on both the Palestinians in the occupied territories and those who remain within Israel’s pre- 1967 borders.

Two key themes will emerge from this analysis. First, the immigration will be situated within its institutional context, in terms of an understanding of the privileges assigned to Jewish citizens of Israel through a complex of laws and parastatal structures. Second, despite the efforts to convene a regional peace conference when the principle of “land for peace” will be considered, an objective dynamic is at work in Israeli policy, through the expro- priation of land and other repressive measures, that points toward the transfer of the Palestinian Arab people, including those who comprise 18 percent of Israel’s citizens. Transfer is a somewhat innocuous-

‘See Jerusalem Posr, June 9, 1990. 2The Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a sig-

natory, forbids the transfer of civilians into occupied territories.

120

COHEN: ISRAEL’S EXPANSION THROUGH IMMIGRATION

sounding term for mass expulsion, and it should be noted that the threat of transfer does not arise simply from its current pop- ularity within Israeli public discourse, but from continuous Israeli practice.

A LAND OF ITS CITIZENS? With this dynamic in mind, an attempt to

characterize Israel’s domestic policies touches on the frequently asked question of whether the state of Israel belongs to all its citizens or just to one distinct group. While Israel has some of the trappings of a liberal democratic state, it maintains a two-tiered civil status for its citizens. The result is that many privileges enjoyed by Jewish citizens are denied to the non-Jewish (that is, Arab Christian, Muslim and Druze) citizenry. The 835,000 Arab citizens of Israel are not full and equal citizens of the state and cannot be, unless the laws of the state were radically reformed. By outlining the function and meaning of relevant Israeli laws, we can better understand how the state of Israel plans to use the current wave of immigration to acquire more land.

Since 1949, Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel have been granted the right to vote in national elections and to form political parties, as long as those parties do not contra- dict the principle that Israel is a Jewish state.3 However, full democratic rights in Israel are not a function of Israeli citizenship but rather are granted on the basis of “Jewish nationality.”

’As stipulated in Basic Law: The Knesset (Amend- ment No. 7, 1985). which provides that ‘‘a list of candidates shall not participate in the elections for the Knesset if its aims or actions, expressly or implicitly, point to one of the following: ( I ) Denial of the existence of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. . . . ” See Nadim Rouhana, “The Political Transformation of the Palestinians in Israel: From Acquiescence to Challenge,” Journal of Palestine Studies (Spring 1989), pp. 50-51.

With regard to rights and privileges within the state of Israel, citizenship without “Jewish nationality” is an inferior status. The only nationality status which is legally recognized in Israeli law is “Jewish nationality.’’ Although personal identifica- tion cards, birth certificates or other official documents may indicate an Israeli citizen’s nationality as Arab, Druze, Circassian or some other national origin, this distinction has no legal standing in Israeli domestic law. Hence, the official definition of Israel as “the Jewish state”4 and the laws pertain- ing to civil status negatively affect the Arab population in Israel and deny their right to nationality.5

The relationship to land for both Jews and nonJews is defined in two laws passed by the Knesset in 1950. The state’s first basic law, the Law of Return, applies spe- cifically to Jews; the Absentee Property Laws apply to Palestinians. The Law of Return gives every Jew in the world the right to enter Palestine (Israel) and obtain citizenship upon request. This basic law is not an immigration law in the traditional sense, since Jews are not immigrating, but returning as “nationals.” Rather, the Law of Return confers a nationality right to live in “the land of Israel.”

This same right is not honored for some two million Palestinians and their descen-

41srael’s Proclamation of Independence defines Is- rael as a “Jewish state.” While this document has no legal status, the existence and maintenance of the Jewish national institutions provides for the concrete application of this principle.

’This contradicts Israel’s numerous international treaty obligations to honor the principle of nondiscrim- ination and the specific right to nationality for its citizens. The obligation to uphold the right to nationality is set forth in, among others, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (article 15), which Israel ratified in 1991; and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (article l[dl[iiil), which Israel ratified in 1979.

121

MIDDLE EAST POLICY

dants who were expelled or fled from their country during the wars of 1948 and after. Instead, their status in Israeli law is that of “absentees,” denied the right to return and to claim their own properties.6 In 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel assumed the authority to define and declare “abandoned” areas.7 The Absentee Property Regulations (1948) clarified the relationship of Arabs to their property by preventing the return of these indigenous residents, including Arab citizens of Israel. The state had seized their lands and homes as “abandoned” properties and transferred them to Jewish national institutions such as the Jewish National Fund.*

Officially, Israel has obtained at least 92 percent of the lands of historical Palestine inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders for exclusive Jewish use. The Absentee Property Regulations are still used today as a pretext for state seizure of Palestinian land and properties in and around Arab towns and villages inside Israel. In the occupied Pal- estinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a single military order (No. 58) assumes a function similar to the Absentee Property Regulations and empowers the Custodian of Absentee Property, through the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), to confiscate Palestinian property and to expel occupants whom the custodian determines to have no right to occupy it.9

Vhis contravenes Israel’s international treaty obligations to honor the right of return as stipulated in article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as General Assembly Resolu- tion 194(111) of December 1 1 , 1948.

7Abandoned Areas Ordinance, Oficial Gazette, June 30, 1948. See Don Peretz, Israel and rhe Pales- fine Arahs (Washington: Middle East Institute, 1958), pp. 149-50.

‘See Walter Lehn with Uri Davis, The Jewish Na- tional Fund (London and New York: Kegan Paul International. 1988).

9See David Kretzmer, The Legal Status ofArabs in Israel (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), p. 56. See

Those whom the state determines to be Jewish nationals, whether living in Israel or not, are eligible for the benefits of the state’s “national institutions.” These institutions include the World Zionist Organiza- tion (WZO) and its executive arm, the Jew- ish Agency, which form a bridge between the state of Israel and Jews living as citizens in other states. Formed in 1897 with the goal of creating “for the Jewish people” a home in Palestine secured by public law, the WZO’s status was transformed after the creation of Israel from a public body to be an integral part of the state. In November 1952, the Knesset enacted the WZO/Jewish Agency Status Law, through which the state recognized the WZO as “the autho- rized agency which will continue to operate in the state of Israel for the development and settlement of the country, the absorption of immigrants from the Diaspora and the coordination of the activities in Israel of Jewish institutions and organizations active in those fields.”*o By adopting the Status Law as part of the package of basic laws which substitute for a constitution, Israel’s character as a “Jewish state” was assured.

It is in the planning and execution of immigration policies that the close relationship between nationality status and land can be appreciated. Through the compli- cated system of basic laws, the land in Israel theoretically becomes the property of the Jewish nationals alone “in perpetuity.” Jewish immigration is instrumental to “re- claiming” the land for exclusive Jewish use, and the promise of great numbers of new immigrants necessarily means the ac- celeration of this process.

also “Israeli Settlements: Against the Law,” a publication of the Settlement Watch project, Washington, DC (1992).

“See Roselle Tekiner, “Jewish Nationality Status as the Basis for Institutionalized Racism in Israel” (Washington: EAFORD [USA], 19851, p. 11 .

122


A number of WZO-linked institutions, such as the ILA and the Jewish National Fund (JNF), exist to procure land for Jew- ish settlement. The importance of their function is underlined by Uzi Oman:

The ownership of the lands in Israel re- mains legally under the purview of the Is- rael Lands Authority. . . . Whoever is registered as a “Jew” is fully eligible for a lease in a greater portion of the country,. . . whoever is not so registered is barred from occupying real estate in most of the country’s territory. I I

Since the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights in 1967, the question of citizenship and nationality rights has assumed new dimensions. Arab residents in these areas constitute an occupied population and not a citizenry. How- ever, Israeli colonization of these territories and the ideological goal of Eretz Yisroel ha-shlema (greater Israel) mean that state institutions now function inside areas which are not recognized by international law as belonging to Israel. Additionally, Israeli law considers Jews living in these occupied territories as full nationals of the state. If Israel were formally to incorporate any of these territories, there is no evidence to suggest that the same rights would be extended to the indigenous Arab population.

These restrictions lead one to conclude that, despite the existence of two predomi- nant national groups (Israeli Jews and Pal- estinian Arabs of various faiths) in the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, Israeli state laws and parastatal structures provide for the exclusive development of only one of them. The Jewish immigrants to Israel are therefore of crucial use to the state in continuing settle-

ment, the consolidation of control over land and the stability of Israel as a “Jewish state.” As will be demonstrated, however, this is being carried out while the immedi- ate welfare needs of the immigrants have actually been overlooked.

SOVIET JEWISH EMIGRATION-FROM FREEDOM OF CHOICE TO TRANSFER In 1990, it was estimated that up to

750,000 Soviet Jews would be expected to immigrate to Israel over a five-year period. In addition, 17,000 Ethiopian Jews arrived in Israel in 1991 following an airlift orches- trated by the Israeli government and intel- ligence agencies.12 Both the former USSR and Ethiopia have experienced tremendous internal changes during the past decade, allowing an opening for those citizens who can do so to leave. The Jewish exodus from the Soviet Union has soared since 1987. According to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, 18,965 Jews emigrated in 1988; 71,196 in 1989; and 147,386 through November 1990.

The massive leap in emigration during the latter half of the 1980% after it had reached its nadir, was seized upon by Is- raeli leaders as the principal means to ex- tend Israeli control over the occupied territories. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir cap- tured the essence of Israeli strategy with the following statement:

We need the space to house all the people. Big immigration requires Israel to be big as well; we must have the Land of Israel, and we have to fight for it, struggle for it.”

Israel was always, for obvious reasons, the most vocal advocate of the right of Jews to

”Cited in Israel Shahak, “Discrimination against Non-Jewish Israelis,” Middle East Internationsl (July 12, 1991).

~~

12See Jerusalem Post, June 6 , 1991. I3See Jerusalem Post, January 14 and 19, 1990.

123

MIDDLE EAST POLICY

emigrate from the USSR. During the Cold War, the United States connected changes in trade policies with the Soviet Union to increases in emigration, exemplified by the Jackson-Vanik amendment of 1974. How- ever, most of the emigrants, having left the Soviet Union, did not elect to go to IsraeI,14 and the United States was committed, under the Helsinki Accords of 1977, to recog- nize their right to freedom of choice in determining their ultimate destination.

As a result of the impact of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform program in the Soviet Union, the prospect of mass Jewish emigration became a reality. The collapse of stat- ist communism in the Soviet Union, sym- bolized by the abortive coup against Gor- bachev in August 1991, coincided with a regeneration of nationalism in the constitu- ent republics and simultaneously increased fears of a new form of persecution among minorities. While there was always anti- Semitism at the state level in the USSR, particularly pronounced during the Stalin years, Gorbachev’s liberalization opened up a space for racist movements that were autonomous from the state apparatus. Or- ganizations such as the Russian nationalist Pamyat (Memory) have made no secret of their hatred for the Jewish people, and have even indulged in physical violence against Jews. 15 Feelings of uncertainty regarding their future, coupled with the removal of emigration restrictions, led many Soviet Jews to seriously consider leaving the country.

As the number of Jews leaving the USSR increased, U.S. immigration laws were

I4See Geoffrey Aronson, “Soviet Jewish Emigra- tion, the United State and the Occupied Territories,” in Journal of Palestine Studies pp. 30-46, Summer 1990.

”See the reports by Vitalii I. Goldanski, The Wash- ington Post, February 18, 1990, and Konstantin Ivanov, Searchlight Anti-Fascist Magazine, October 1990.

more strictly enforced.16 Soviet Jews were now required to prove the existence of persecution, whereas previously such vali- dation had not been necessary. In addition, the U.S. administration refused to budget more funds for refugee absorption. Conse- quently, freedom of choice was no longer tenable as far as Soviet Jews were concerned. At the same time, Israeli envoys in the USSR embarked on an active campaign to persuade Soviet Jews to leave for Isra- el.” There was little other choice.

IMMIGRANTS AND ISRAEL’S CRISIS In essence, Soviet Jews have exchanged

one crisis for another. While they are entitled, as noted previously, to an array of citizenship privileges by virtue of their being Jews, they have not been immune from Israel’s worsening economic situation. In- deed, their arrival en mame has precipi- tated a grave internal crisis in Israel that highlights the often ignored social contra- dictions among the Jewish population. For example, the same issue of the liberal daily Ha ’aretz carries five different headlines all dealing with the plight of Soviet Jews: “The direct absorption approach (whereby new immigrants are given a grant and then left to their own devices-BC) has failed,” writes commentator Ran Kislev. “The absorption wagon is in deep mud,” declares Uri Gor- don, head of the WZO’s immigration and absorption department. “Failure of aliya (immigration) is assured,” writes Avraham

‘%ee Charlie Pottins, “Last Exit Not to Brooklyn,” in Jewish Socialist, Autumn 1990.

”Jewish officials in Kiev told a visiting delegation of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in May 1990 that Zionist envoys deliberately downplayed absorption problems in Israel. See the author’s articles in Middle East International, No. 377, June 8, 1990, and The Middle East, No. 189, July 1990. See also ADC Delegation Meets with Soviet Jewry in USSR, in ADC Times, Vol. 1 1 , No. 3, AprillMay 1990.

124


Tel; Prosper Azran, mayor of the northern development town of Kiryat Shmonah, is quoted as saying, “I will try to put brakes on the absorption of immigrants in Kiryat Shmonah, as I have neither apartments nor employment for them;” most significantly, WZO Chair Simcha Dinitz warns, “If there is not a revolution in the manner of absorption, aliya will decrease dramatically.”*8

So far, around 310,000 Soviet Jews have arrived in Israel.19 As of May 1991, only 24,000, having completed their government-subsidized courses in the Hebrew lan- guage, had entered the workforce. Out of these, 12,000 have found work, with the remaining half officially registered as unemployed. Another 450,000 Soviet Jews are expected to arrive before the end of 1994, swelling the workforce to 3.67 times its size before the immigration began. In March 1991, 165,000 Israelis-10 percent of the workforce-were registered as unemployed. If current trends continue, and both the Finance Ministry and the Bank of Israel agree that there are no remedies in sight, Israel will face the most serious economic crisis in its history. Finance Ministry data predict that the rate of unemployment is liable to reach 14 percent of the workforce (220,000) by the end of 1991. Even if such growth does not take place, unemployment figures will remain stable at 10 percent. A Bank of Israel report issued on April 24, 1991, estimates that unemployment could affect 400,000 workers within two years. The report also contends that “the Israeli economy is facing a most difficult challenge, that of creating 600,000 new jobs over the coming five years, in order to absorb the immigrants and new members of the workforce from among the veteran pop-

Issee Ha’aretz, April 4, 1991. ‘This is the approximate figure as of July 1991. See

News from Within (Alternative Information Center, POB 24278, Jerusalem, Israel), Vol. 7, No. 10, Octo- ber 2, 1991.

ulation.” The governor of the Bank of Israel, Michael Bruno, has stated plainly that “unemployment of this magnitude en- dangers the fabric of our lives.” WZO Chair Dinitz admitted that unemployment imperiled the future of the immigration, since “people are receiving letters about the terrible difficulties in housing and especially in finding employment. . . . There are already 12,000 exit-permit holders who are not exploiting the opportunity to immigrate to Israel, but are waiting in the Soviet Union in the hope that perhaps the doors of the United States or some of the countries in Europe will open to them.”20

By defining itself as the state of the Jewish people and by supporting measures that deny residency rights to Jews trying to settle in other countries, the rights of Jews as Jews-and not as fodder for further settlements-are being infringed upon by Israel.

These doors will remain closed, since the United States is refusing to admit more immigrants and both Israel and the WZO have no objective interest in helping Soviet Jews obtain citizenship in other countries. Thus, while Israel extends citizenship rights to Jews that are denied to Palestinian Arabs, the role of the WZO means that Soviet Jews are effectively being coerced into going to Israel. By defining itself as the state of the Jewish people and by supporting measures that deny residency rights to Jews trying to settle in other countries, the rights of Jews as Jews-and not as fodder

~~ ~~

’‘See News from Within, Vol. 7, No. 5 , May 2, 1991.

125

MIDDLE EAST POLICY

for further settlements-are being infringed upon by Israel.

One of the most worrying consequences of the hardships now faced by Soviet Jews is the plague of suicides among the community. This is a phenomenon that has been acknowledged and examined in the Israeli press, although its proportions are a subject of debate. Neither the Absorption nor the Health Ministries have gathered statistics enumerating the suicides. The newspaper Hu’ir21 estimates that 24 suicides have oc- curred in the period spanning 1990-91, although, based on conversations between its correspondents and Soviet immigrants, the number could be higher.

According to Hu’ir, “Every immigrant is prepared to state with certainty that for every suicide there are at least five-and some say eight-‘unsuccessful’ suicide attempts.” Another report in the Yerushu- luyirn newspaper mentions that such state- ments were corroborated by Soviet psychi- atrists who have been resident in Israel for some time. The great majority of those who take their own lives are professionals, as Hu’ir makes clear with three short case studies. Esther Rapaport, aged 58, from Rishon Le Zion, had been deeply depressed because her husband, a senior engineer, had been unable to find work. Simon El- kind, aged 36, had worked as a refrigeration engineer in the USSR. The only employment he found in Israel was as a laborer in a paving-stone factory in Haifa. His widow, Anna, told the press: “Simon was not sat- isfied with his employment as a simple laborer. He kept saying, ‘There’s no apartment, no work; life is not good here. I want to go back to Russia.”’ Sima Auerbach, a senior mechanical engineer aged 44, committed suicide only eight months after ar- riving in Israel. Among papers found after her death was a letter to her sister advising

”See Ha’ir, April 19, 1991.

her not to come to Israel under any circum- stance.

Soviet Jewish immigration has also ac- centuated discrimination against Israel’s Sephardi Jewish population. Again, unlike in the case of the Palestinians, such discrimination is not legally sanctioned. How- ever, when one looks at the practices of successive Israeli governments, it becomes clear that racism against the Sephardi Jews cannot be understood as a developmental problem of a young state, but is linked into the process of immigration, subjugation and dispossession which characterizes a colo- nial-settler state. In 1908, a group of Ye- menite Jews were brought to the Jewish colony in Palestine because, as a Jewish Agency official candidly remarked, they were capable of working for “Arab wages” on lands bought from absentee landlords at the expense of the Arab peasantry.22 After 1948, it became clear that the European Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust did not, in general, wish to leave for Israel. In order to populate the “evacuated Arab do- main,”23 the Zionist leadership turned its attention towards the Jewish communities in Arab countries, where a Zionist tradition, precisely because Zionism was a re- sponse to the crisis of European Jewry, was absent. Between 1948 and 1967, one million Sephardi Jews from Morocco, Algeria, Tu- nisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon came to Israel. As the Pales- tinian population was transferred out, Sephardi Jews were transferred in.24

“See editorial on Soviet Jewry, Rerurn Magazine, No. 2, March 1990.

23See Ilvan Halevi, A Hisrory of the Jews (London, 1987), p. 197.

241n Discord in Zion: Conflicr berween Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews in Israel (London, 1990, first published as Isra’il nahwa al-infdar a/-dakhili, Cairo, 1988), Gideon Giladi outlines the cultural and economic oppression experienced by Sephardi Jews in Israel. Raphael Shapiro, in his essay, Zionism and Its

126

To reiterate: in the legal sphere there is no discrimination against Sephardi Jews. Discrimination against them stems from their role in the development of Israel’s economy, where, as Shlomo Swirski points out, Sephardi Jews constitute “a relatively cheap, mobile and manipulable labor force.”*’ Since Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel has taken place during a period of economic stagnation, it is likely that wages will fall to Southeast Asian levels. One senior Treasury official talked of a 6 percent erosion in the real value of wages in the future.26 At the same time, the immigration has led to sharp rent rises inside Israel, and many Sephardi Jewish families have been forced to set up tents in public parks in such cities as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Holon and Karmiel. The outlook is equally bleak for the newly arrived Ethiopian Jews. A WZO official interviewed on the Kol Yis- rue1 radio station was asked whether the absorption of the Ethiopians would be more successful than the previous wave of 1985. He answered frankly: ‘‘I cannot promise anything on this topic.”27

With such an evident lack of resources, settlement of new immigrants in the occupied territories is a questionable option for the state of Israel. When a group of dovish

Zionists at the 1990 WZO Congress in Je- rusalem tried to move a resolution against the settlement of Soviet Jews in the occupied territories, they were forced to retreat by Yitzhak Shamir, who argued that warn- ings of a war over the Soviet Jews were an Arab ruse to sabotage the immigration.28 The government is also luring both immigrants and veteran Israelis into the West Bank with promises of cheap land, low or interest-free mortgages and the promise of escape from Israel’s overcrowded cities. According to Meron Benvenisti, one of Israel’s leading experts on settlement in the occupied territories, even without these en- ticements, existing benefits for West Bank settlers are considerable. Benvenisti estimates that the WZO has spend $2.5 billion in the last 20 years building and maintaining settlements. His figures also reveal that settlers enjoy a 7 percent reduction in in- come tax and that industries opening in the occupied territories receive a 40 percent grant for the purchase of equipment. In addition, the Israel Lands Authority sells settlers building plots of land expropriated from Palestinians at 5 percent of the as- sessed value.29


I

I27

SQUEEZING THE PALESTINIANS For Palestinians on both sides of the

Green Line, Soviet Jewish immigration has led to further pressure not only on their struggle for national self-determination but on their ability to sustain their very existence. Although the main focus here is on the relationship between immigration and land settlement, the effect of the immigration upon Palestinian workers should be

Oriental Subjects (Forbidden Agendas: Intolerance and Defiance in the Middle East, London, 1984, edited by Kharnsin), examines the Zionist fiction of “Jewish national unity” in the drive to bring Sephardi Jews to Israel. Abbas Shiblak, in The Lure of Zion: The Case of the Iraqi Jews (London, 1986) looks at the Zionist terror campaign to provoke the Jews of Iraq to leave for Israel, and at the deal brokered between the Iraqi Prime Minister al-Suwaidi and Zionist envoy Shlomo Hillel, after the Iraqi government legalized emigration in 1950, to transport the Iraqi Jews.

2SSee Shlomo Swirski, Israel-The Oriental Major- iry (London, 1989), p. 8.

26See Marcello Wexler, “Taiwanization of Israel,” in News from Within, Vol. 7 , No. 9, September 2, 1991.

27See The Orher Front (published by the Alternative Information Center) May 29, 1 9 9 1 .

28The Los Angeles Times Wire Service (Jerusalem) and Xinhua General Overseas News Service (Am- man), June 21, 1990.

29See Arish O’Sullivan, Associated Press (Jerusa- lem), March 10, 1990.

MIDDLE EAST POLICY

mentioned, as this is instructive in explain- ing the adjustments concerning the Pales- tinian position in Israel and the occupied territories.

While the aim of “productivizing” the Jewish people through “Jewish labor” was always a hallmark of Zionist ideology and practice, it was never rigidly enforced as a policy. During the 1950s and 1960s, the industrialization of Israel required the use of cheap Palestinian labor.30 After 1967, this became more pronounced as Palestin- ian workers from the newly occupied territories began to flood into Israel. Denied the right to form unions and ignored by the official Israeli trade union, the Histadrut (which behaves more like a state-owned corporation), Palestinian workers faced paltry wages and recruitment in “slave markets” on the edges of cities like Tel Aviv, and had to return to the occupied territories by nightfall or risk detention by the police. Following the onset of the Gulf crisis in August 1990 and the massacre of Palestinians by Israeli police outside Jerus- alem’s A1 Aqsa mosque in October of the same year, Israel was sealed off to residents of the occupied territories. Due to these draconian measures, the Israeli construction industry in particular was hit hard. This prompted Gad Fisch, head of the Tel Aviv regional ofice of the Employment Service, to declare that employers intended to replace the 110,000 Palestinians who regularly worked in Israel with new immigrants. Fifty percent of the 100,000 construction workers in Israel were Palestin- ians from the occupied territories.31

Another example is the Kitan textile factory in the development town of Dimona, which announced its intention to dismiss 90

~

”See Adam Keller, Terrible Days (Amstelveen, The Netherlands, 1987). pp. 19-22.

”See Jerusalem Post, October 26, 1990, and also Emmanuel Fajoun, Palestinian Workers in Israel: A Reserve Army of Labor (Forbidden Agendas, ibid.).

Palestinian workers and replace them with Soviet Jews. Canadian billionaire devel- oper Edward Reichmann, discussing plans for a luxury apartment block and shopping center in west Jerusalem, made clear that he would not employ Palestinian workers. In parallel, Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai proposed tough measures that would force unemployed Israelis under the age of 30 to accept any job they were physically capable of performing within a 60km radius of their homes or forfeit their unemployment benefit. Modai’s most vociferous sup- porters were the Israeli Labor party, who said that they were in favor of outlawing Palestinian labor altogether. The results of the policy are clearly visible: in 1990, the number of Palestinians from the occupied territories working in Israel fell to 3.3 percent.32

SETTLEMENTS OUTLINED The expansion of Israel has literally

transformed the landscape of Palestine. Suffocation of the Palestinian existence, while clearly visible in labor and family unification polices,33 is most sharply demonstrated by Israeli policies on land. As already noted, Soviet Jewish immigration has allowed the government, supported by the WZO, to embark on a frenzied campaign of settlement in the occupied territories, including east Jerusalem, illegally annexed by Israel in 1967.

The foundations for settlement were laid down by Israel following its conquest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. In 1970, a government publication entitled, Judea and Samaria (Israeli parlance for the occupied territories): Guidelines for Regional and Physical Planning stated Israel’s intention to develop “the periphery of Samaria

’*See Jerusalem Report, November 1, 1990. ”See The Right to Unite (Occasional Paper No. 8,

Al-Haq, Ramallah, 1990).

128

COHEN: ISRAEL’S EXPANSlON THROUGH IMMIGRATION

and Judea so that it may become integrated with the rest of the country.” A series of development plans emerged which tight- ened restrictions on Palestinian land use while simultaneously extending Israeli control. Among such plans were the Allon Plan of 1967, which recommended a chain of Jewish colonies along the Jordan River, the Rift valley and the Judean desert to ensure Israel’s security, and the Drobles Plan of 1981, updated in 1983 (its author was head of the WZO’s settlement division), which called for 120,000 Jews to be settled in the occupied territories by 1985.34

It should be remembered that the Labor party, which has often called for a halt in settlement, allowed the program to be realized as a result of the Allon plan, described by Israeli journalist Uri Avneri as a “plan for far-reaching annexations.”

When the Likud formed a government in 1977, only 5,000 Jews had settled in the West Bank. By 1981, the number had risen to 16,000, by 1985 to 52,000.35 It should be remembered that the Labor party, which has often called for a halt in settlement, allowed the program to be realized as a result of the Allon plan, described by Israeli journalist Uri Avneri as a “plan for far- reaching annexations.”36 There are now 120,000 settlers living in the occupied tem-

”See Rami S. Abdulahdi, “Land Use Planning in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” in Journal of Palestine Studies pp. 46-64, Summer 1990.

’%ee “Claiming the Land,” in The Economist, October 5 , 1991.

’“See Uri Avneri, My Friend, The Enemy (London, 1986), p. 80.

tories, with a further 130,000 in annexed east Jerusalem. In its drive to create facts on the ground in order to deflect peace- conference discussions on territorial compromise, Israel will be able, through the opportunity presented by mass immigration, to increase the number of Jewish settlers to 500,000 over the next three years, according to one estimate.37

THE WEST BANK Settlements in the West Bank (and the

Gaza Strip, which will be examined later on) have been unequivocally condemned by the U.S. administration as obstacles to peace. Indeed, Israel’s provocative policies threatened to sabotage U.S. efforts to convene a Middle East peace conference. Be- cause of this, a congressional debate in September of 1991 on the provision of $10 billion in housing-loan guarantees to aid the absorption of Soviet Jewish immigrants was suspended for 120 days.

A 1990 report issued by the Israeli human-rights organization Be’tszelem re- vealed that 70 percent of West Bank lands could not be built on by Palestinian residents.38 Despite Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy’s assurances to U.S. Secretary of State James Baker in October 1990 that Israel did not intend to settle Soviet Jews in the occupied territories, a February 1991 report by left-wing Knesset members Dedi Zucker and Chaim Oron indicated other- wise.39 Zucker and Oron argued that Hous- ing Minister Ariel Sharon, who is vehe- mently opposed to negotiations with the

”Figure from research by Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC), in News from Within, Vol. 7 , No. 10, September 2, 1991.

”See Israeli Mirror, August 30, 1990. ”See Dedi Zucker and Chaim Oron, “Report on the

Construction of Jewish Settlements in the Occupied Territories 1991-93,” reproduced in Journal of Pales- tine Studies pp. 151-153, Spring 1991.

129

MIDDLE EAST POLICY

Palestinians, was guided by three political principles in extending settlement building:

1. A large construction effort will be undertaken for the ultraorthodox population, thereby creating a commitment between the ultraorthodox parties and a large number of their voters.

2. The majority of the construction activities will take place in existing settlements, making it easy to claim what is especially comforting to American ears-that no new settlements are being established.

3. In the “Makabim” bloc, a large effort to build new settlements along both sides of the Green Line will be made, e.g., the “Modi’in” and “Kiryat Sefer” settlements.

In the West Bank, large-scale construction is being carried out in existing settlements like Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim, Efrat and Betar. Israel’s total annual construction budget for the occupied territories stands at NIS 495 million (about $250 million). Insofar as Soviet Jews are concerned, Zucker and Oron’s data showed that, by February 1991, 2,500 immigrants had settled in the occupied territories, excluding east Jerusalem; 1,550 had listed one of the settlements as their destination upon arrival at Tel Aviv airport. The report concluded: “In 1990, the number of Jews living in the occupied territories increased by 15 percent. The source of this growth is the new immigrants, mainly from the USSR.”

Further data on settlement activity and its relation to immigration is contained in a report by A1 Haq, the Palestinian legal organization.40 Between January 1988 and June 1991, over 504,120 dunums of land (one dunum equals 100 square meters) were confiscated by the Israeli authorities in the occupied territories, including east Jerusa-

‘“‘See Anthony Coen, “Urban Planning in the West Bank under Military Occupation” (Al-Haq, Ramallah, 1991, cited in News from Within, October 2 , 1991).

lem. Within that period, some 13,000 housing units and 1,900 mobile homes have been established in the occupied territories. Knesset members Charlie Biton and Eli Ben Menachem charge that the Housing Ministry plans to build up to 24,300 housing units in the West Bank by the close of 1992. In east Jerusalem, six new Jewish settlements were constructed in the first half of 1990, totaling 16,000 apartments that will accommodate 56,000 Soviet Jews. The Is- raeli Ministerial Committee on Aliya, headed by Housing Minister Ariel Sharon, intends to increase the Jewish population in east Jerusalem by 45,000 to 60,000 over the next three years.41

GAZA Seven hundred fifty thousand Palestin-

ians are crammed into the tiny Gaza Strip, which is 45km long and 8km wide, making it one of the most densely populated areas in the world.42 While most studies of Israeli settlement policies after 1967 have focused on the West Bank, the advent of the Likud to power in 1977 led to increased settlement activity in Gaza. In 1982, the Jewish Agency published brochures describing Gaza as the Hawaii of Israel and urged the government to settle 100,OOO Jews in the Strip.43 Meron Benvenisti has estimated that by 1988, 49 percent of the total land area of the Gaza Strip was under Israeli control. In 1983, the settler population in Gaza was around 1,000. By 1990, the number had reached 4,000, with settler leaders

~ ~

4’See “The Foundation for Middle East Peace,” Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territo- ries, January 1991.

42See “Gaza-The Soweto of Israel,” Report by UNWRA in Newsfrom Within, Vol. 7 , No. 7, July 3, 1991.

43See Richard Locke and Anthony Stewart, Bun- tustan Gaza (London, 1985). p. 65.

130

~ ~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~~


in Gaza expecting an increase to 5,000 by the end of 1991.44 .

While Israel and its parastatal organizations have carefully created an infrastructure for settlers in the Gaza Strip, similar attention has been paid to stunting Palestinian development here. Due to Israeli restrictions on agriculture and industry and the 40-day cur- few imposed during the Gulf War, the Gazan economy has entered a steep decline. In Gaza, the issue is not so much one of living standards, but of life itself. Water shortage, which presents a challenge to the entire Mid- dle East, is a particularly acute problem in Gaza. Since 1967, water has been rationed in the Gaza Strip, and overpumping by Israeli farmers has led to the intrusion of sea water into the aquifer.45 Research by the Israel- Palestine Center for Research and Informa- tion shows that by 1992, the shallow aquifer in the Gaza Strip will not be able to meet the irrigation demands of Palestinian farmers. Additionally, there is a severe threat of wide- spread kidney disease, a consequence of the uncontrolled use of nitrogen fertilizers pollut- ing both the aquifer and the sewage system.&

WITHIN THE GREEN LINE Land within the Green Line is often

posited as an alternative to settlement expansion in the occupied territories. The reality of such a strategy is that settlement of new immigrants and others in these areas will come primarily at the expense of those Palestinians who have remained within the 1948 borders of the state of Israel.

Although privileged citizenship rights are applied to the Jewish population of Israel, in actual fact there is no “Israeli” nationality as such that is enshrined in the law. While Jews and Arabs can be defined as

“See Davar, August 14, 1991. 4’Locke and Stewart, p. 42. &See the author’s Landfor Peace?, Gemini News

Service, June 7. 1991.

citizens of the state, under the Population Registry Law nationality is identified as Jewish, Arab, Druze, etc. In this way, the Zionist definition of Israel as a Jewish state can be upheld.47 Hence the corresponding discrimination against the Arab populations and the existence of “national” institutions like the WZO and the JNF, which can “redeem” land and provide services which benefit Jewish citizens only.

Israel’s ability to confiscate and expropriate lands dates back to laws inherited from the British Mandate and from the Planning and Construction Law of 1965.48 These laws allow the Israeli courts to expropriate lands for the requirements of the “public,” and the definition of “public” invariably means Is- rael’s Jewish citizens. Soviet Jewish immigrants to Israel, therefore, can be settled on lands expropriated from Palestinians because the courts will deem that this will benefit the public. One recent example of such a mea- sure is Ramyah, an Arab village close to the development town of Karmiel, whose lands were selected, following a summons issued on April 27,1991, for the settlement of Soviet immigrants.

~ ~ ~

In the Negev, a 20-year plan by the Israel Lands Authority to transfer the area’s 75,000 Arabs into seven urban concentrations has gained further momentum through the “Negev Silicon” project.

The case of Ramyah must be understood in the context of the historical encroach- ment by the authorities upon Arab land in Israel. Around 600,000 Palestinians live in

47Tekiner, note 2. 48See News from Within, September 2, 1991.

131

MIDDLE EAST POLICY

the state of Israel, constituting 15 percent of the total population. In the main, they are concentrated in three distinct areas of Israel: the Galilee, the Little Triangle northeast of Tel Aviv and the Negev. Dur- ing the 1950s and ’ ~ O S , Arab villages and towns lost the overwhelming majority of their lands to the state. In the 1960s and ’~OS, Israel established Arab local councils and allocated each one its own areas of jurisdiction, generally leaving them with less than 25 percent of the areas of jurisdiction which they previously had under the British mandate.49

In the Galilee, where 56 percent of Is- rael’s Arab population lives, the authorities have embarked on a consistent campaign of what is openly termed “Judaization.” This pattern can be traced back to 1948, when Israel attempted to fill the vacuum caused by the evacuation of Palestinian villages. Later on, Israel established further settlements in the Galilee, which by 1982 were clearly aimed at obstructing the development of the Palestinian villages in the region.50 In the Negev, a 20-year plan by the Israel Lands Authority to transfer the area’s 75,000 Arabs into seven urban concentrations has gained further momentum through the “Negev Silicon” project. By developing a high-technology industrial zone in the Negev, the project will permit the absorption of 400,000 Jews while pro- viding jobs for scientists and technicians. It is expected that the majority will be new immigrants from the USSR.S*

“See Massive Takeover of Arab Land inside the Green Line-Recent Findings, report by HanitzotdA- Sharara Publishing House (Jerusalem), June 1 I , 1991.

”See Ghazi Falah, Israeli “Judaization” Policy in Galilee, in Journal of Palestine Siudies pp. 69-86, Summer 1991.

”HanitzotdA-Sharara, note 45.

ERASING THE GREEN LINE In the tradition of previous attempts to

ensure the permanence of the Israeli pres- ence in the occupied territories, Housing Minister Ariel Sharon has embarked on an ambitious plan that will entail the eradica- tion of the Green Line itself. The “Seven Stars” plan refers to cities that will be built along the Green Line, straddling the border between Israel and the West Bank. At a dedication ceremony on September 23, 1991, for the settlement of Tzur Yigal, situated on the Green Line, Yitzhak Shamir proclaimed: “With the establishment of this settlement, we are saying that we must settle and settle, and that the dream will always be that all the territories are ours, and the areas where construction is going on will be populated right up to the horizon. . . . As far as I’m concerned, the Green Line no longer exists.”52

In fact, the Green Line is being pushed further eastward towards Jordan. As Meron Benvenisti has observed, “Sharon’s objective is to create geo-political fairs ac- complis that will leave his opponents with their mouths gaping. He wants to rip off the masks of evasion which characterize those who oppose the settlements in the territories.”53 The main consequence of the Seven Stars, stretching from the Latrun enclave to the Jezreel Valley, will be the creation of a buffer between Palestinian areas of Israel and the West Bank, and a connection between Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and metropolitan Tel Aviv. Thus, through the geographical integration of the West Bank into Israel, Sharon intends to make diplomatic consid- erations of the Green Line irrelevant.

”See News from Within, September 2, 1991. ”See Meron Benvenisti, Sharon’s Stars, in Hu-

’aretz, April l l , 1991.

132


SETTLEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANTS Since the starting points for those settle-

ments included in the Seven Stars plan are located on the fast-vanishing Green Line, they are ideal for the absorption of new immigrants, as they are technically a part of Greater Tel Aviv.54 However, new immigrants are also being sent directly into the occupied territories.

It is often argued that Israel requires the space in the occupied territories in order to prevent the absorption of immigrants from becoming a disaster. This implies that Is- rael has been unwittingly besieged by immigrants, and that settlement activity is just a spontaneous reaction to an unbearable situation. Proponents of such a view ignore the fact that settlement activity predates the Soviet immigration and indeed lies at the heart of the state of Israel’s ethos. The WZO’s Drobles Plan of 1983 spoke of set- tling 800,000 Jews in the occupied territories by the year 2010, adding that only 5 percent of the land in the West Bank was “problematic for settlement.”55

Between January 1990 and July 1991, in keeping with the findings and projections of the Zucker-Oron report, 4,000 new immigrants settled in the occupied territories. Twelve percent of immigrants who arrived in Israel after January 1991 have gone to Jerusalem, implying that at least 16,300 have settled in the illegally annexed eastern half of the city.56 There are no indications that settlement of new immigrants in the occupied territories will cease. On the con- trary, given that new immigrants “have a right to live in Ariel and Emanuel as much as they have a right to live in Tel Aviv or

~ ~ ~

54See Roni Ben Efrat, “Cantonizing the Palestinian State,” in Challenge-Magazine of the Israeli L e f , Vol. 2 , No. 4.

”Coen, note 36. ’61bid.

Kfar Sava,”’’ it will become increasingly difficult to monitor where immigrants are being settled since, as journalist Dani Ru- binstein has noted, “government ministries and public institutions do not differentiate between Israelis living on either side of the Green Line.”58

WHITHER THE SOVIET IMMIGRANTS? Aided by the various quasi-state institu-

tions, Israel has followed a policy of expansion since 1948. The maintenance of immigration is crucial if the policy is to continue. While expansion takes place at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs, it also infringes on the rights of the immigrants themselves.

It was noted earlier that the option of freedom of choice in determining where to go from the USSR was no longer available to Soviet Jews, particularly in the case of the United States. While this is in part due to U.S. cuts in the budget for refugees, it is also the result of firm campaigning by the Israeli government and Zionist organizations to prevent Soviet Jews from going to any country other than Israel.

These positions are not new, but have been visible throughout the existence of the campaign for Soviet Jews. In 1982, the Jewish Agency bitterly attacked the Aus- trian government for placing a Russian lan- guage poster in the Vienna transit center which informed migrants of the addresses of Jewish and non-Jewish organizations which would help them go to destinations other than Israel. The Israeli ambassador to Vienna persuaded the Austrians to remove the poster. Additionally, the Jewish Agency sought the collaboration of U. S. Jewish organizations in ensuring that only

”Quote attributed to Knesset Member Michael Eitan (Likud), Jerusalem Posr, April 19, 1991.

’*See The Other Front, October 12, 1991.

133

MIDDLE EAST POLICY

those Soviet Jews with “first-degree” rela- tives in America should be helped to go there .59

Pressure was put on the Hebrew Immi- grant Aid Society (HIASMnce described by Knesset Member Michael Kleiner as a “cancerous growth” because of the help it gave to Jews not wishing to go to Israel-to stop aiding Soviet Jews.60 Emphasis was placed on the financial contributions of Jews in the United States for the settlement of Soviet Jews in Israel. Again, this is not without historical precedent. In 1938, David Ben-Gurion wrote a letter to the Zionist Executive concerning the perilous situation faced by Jews in Europe: “If Jews will have to choose between the refugees, saving Jews from concentration camps and assisting a national museum in Palestine, mercy will have the upper hand and the whole energy of the people will be chan- nelled into saving Jews from various countries. Zionism will be struck off the agenda. . . . If we allow a separation between the refugee problem and the Palestine problem, we are risking the existence of Zionism.” Ben-Gurion’s sentiments were echoed half- a-century later by Australian Zionist leader Isi Liebler: “The transfer [sic] of one diaspora to another, even from a Communist society to a democracy, is not a pressing national Jewish objective. This is especially true if the overwhelming majority of Jews wanting to leave-currently over 90 percent-do not want to go to IsraeL”61 In other words, the opportunities offered to emigre Jews through the structures of the state of Israel effectively deny them the possibility of living elsewhere.

None of this should be taken to imply that the situation in the Soviet Union is akin to Nazi Germany. Such analogies are made

S9See Jewish Chronicle, January 15, 1982. MSee Jewish Chronicle, December 12, 1981. 6’Pottins, note 12.

by the Zionist movement in order to justify the transfer of Soviet Jews to Israel. This also serves to ignore the Jewish cultural revival taking place in Russia and the other republics, and the desire of many sections of the community to remain inside the former Soviet Union. The death of Jewish architect Ilya Krichevski while resisting the coup against Gorbachev, and his subse- quent burial according to Jewish law in the full public view, seemed to signify a future for Jews in the former Soviet Union despite the existence of anti-Semitism. All of this is a source of worry to the Jewish Agency, which now has 80 emissaries in the former Soviet Union actively encouraging Jews to emigrate to Israe1.62

CONCLUSION Immigration is the central feature of Is-

rael’s continuing strategy of expansion. The attempt to make the occupation of Palestinian lands a permanent fact through renewed settlement activity poses a direct threat to the very concept of territorial compromise. Irreversibility of the occupation corresponds to the sustaining of Pales- tinian national oppression and carries the threat of transfer. In addition, the existence of the Jewish national institutions defies international law against racial discrimination.63

If peace is ever to be achieved between Israel and the Palestinians, based upon the right of the Palestinians to self-determination and national equality, two critically important principles need to be applied: respect for the integrity of Jewish commu-

62See David Cesarani, “Staying Power,” in Jewish Socialist, October-December 1 9 9 1 . “U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2106 (1965),

passed by a majority of sufficient size to become an international convention, and ratified by Israel, defined racial discrimination as “distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin.”

134


nities wherever they are and defense of Palestinian rights over their land. Since the policy of Israel and the WZO directly contradicts these principles, the following rec- ommendations are suggested:

1. Anti-Semitism in the former USSR and elsewhere needs to be monitored and com- batted. The Jewish cultural revival in Rus- sia needs to be maintained through financial and other means.

2. The WZO’s policy of transferring So- viet Jews to Israel has to be countered. The United States, Western Europe and Austra- lia in particular should open their doors to Soviet Jews and other refugees. The importance of this point is underscored by a recent, bitterly ironic, incident. In March 1991, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy visited Bonn and requested that the Ger- man government instruct its embassy in Moscow to stop issuing refugee status per- mits to Soviet Jews.64 Two hundred sixty- nine Soviet Jews in Germany now face deportation to Israel.

3. Independent international organizations, chiefly the United Nations, should monitor settlement construction development and activity accurately. In order to dissuade Israel from further settlement activity, financial aid from countries such as the United States will have to be tied to a cessation of building in the occupied territories. Additionally, if the Middle East peace conference explicitly addresses the

MSee Yediot Aharonot, August IS, 1 9 9 1 .

notion of an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, it is likely that the expansion into the occupied territories will be curbed.

4. Likewise, the status of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories needs to be defended through measures that protect their lands and guarantee them full equality with Jewish citizens of Israel. This means tackling Zionism’s legal definition of the Jewish people as a collective body with privileged rights in Palestine/Israel. This undermines the status of diaspora Jewish communities and removes the basic rights of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs. One should also note that even the U.S. State Department has denied that Israel’s “Jew- ish people” concept contains validity under international l a ~ . 6 ~

It would be a tragedy if the opportunities for a lasting peace in the Middle East were to be squandered because insufficient attention has been paid to Israeli policy and strategy. Democracy is now possible for both Israel and the Arab states, but the process itself requires guidance. The alternative-increased settlement, denial of fun- damental human rights to Jews and Arabs, population transfer and further generations of refugees-will only bring more conflict to the region.

65See W.T. and S. Mallison, “The WZO/Jewish Agency in International and U.S. Law,” in Judaism or Zionism: What Difference for the Middle East? (Lon- don: EAFORD and AJAZ, eds., 1986), p. 223.

135

Documents

Israel's Expansion Through Immigration