Haaretz: Annexation would be the ruination of Israel

By Ted Belman

Haaretz just published, Getting in a terrible state, by Nehemia Shtrasler where he argues against annexation because we would end up with a bi-national state with a 60% majority leaving out Gaza. He acknowledges that the proponents of annexation intend to give citizenship because as MK Reuven Rivlin put it: “Better that the Palestinians be citizens of the state than divide the land.”

He limits his argument to one small fact as he puts it, and the economic consequences,

    “The annexation of 2.5 million Palestinians to the State of Israel means a bi-national state with a small, temporary Jewish majority – 60 percent Jews (6.3 million )and 40 percent Arabs (4.2 million ), and that is without Gaza. Thus, the end of the Zionist dream.”

The only problem is , it is not a fact but a lie. There are only 1.5 million Arabs in J&S and we would have a 67% majority with momentum favouring the Jews.

Secondly Israel won’t agree to a binational state which I take to mean two equal nations. She will annex the land based on the Jewish Nation Basic Law which gives precedent to the Jewish nature of the state.

He argues;

    Annexation of the territories means unification between a country whose annual per-capita GDP is $30,000 and the Palestinian Authority, where the GDP is one-tenth of that – $3,000 per person. Accordingly, the poverty rate in the new country will rise by about 35 percent! That would mean moving from the status of a developed country to a third-world country, alongside Sudan and Eritrea.
    This new situation will also require a revolutionary new social policy. It will necessitate a dramatic expansion of the National Insurance budget to help the new weak people (the Palestinians). We will spend huge amounts of money sharing our child and old-age allowances, our unemployment benefits, our welfare, and so on.
    Funding for rehabilitation of Palestinians injured in battle and the families of “martyrs” will have to be expanded; they will be entitled to allowances in keeping with the accepted practice in Israel. After all, they will be citizens with equal rights. Government payments to balance the budgets of Palestinian cities and towns will also be required, as these will no doubt be classified in the lowest socioeconomic cluster. After all, we would not leave them with sewage running in the streets, an irregular water supply and bumpy roads.
    It is also inconceivable that we would withhold health-care benefits, and so the health budget will have to double. There is also no argument that we would have to allocate many billions to upgrade the education system in the territories, to give every Palestinian child what every Israeli child gets.
    Social activist Daphni Leef, who would embark again on a protest for “affordable housing,” will know that the first neighborhoods will be built in the Hebron Hills, where people are still living in caves and tin shacks – and in a democracy we are obligated first of all to help the weakest.
    To fund all of these huge additions, income tax, VAT, corporation tax and capital-gains taxes will have to be hiked by dozens of percentage points. That will chase away investors, lead to a wave of emigration by the middle and upper classes, to massive unemployment and decline into a deep economic crisis.

Must this be so? First of all the effects will be lessened due to the fact that we will have a 67% majority.

Annexation will give us a huge cheap labour pool enabling us to lower our costs of production. The Arabs will receive much higher wages than they do now and therefore will present a growing market for goods produced in Israel. There GDP will expand dramatically.

Citizenship would only be available to those who qualify. We would require them to speak Hebrew and sign a loyalty oath etc. Anyone with any connection to Fatah or Hamas would be ineligible and so on.

We would be saved the cost of transfering 150,000 Jews out of the territories which has been estimated at $150 billion. Gush Katif cost $10 billion. This would cause great inflation which would be avoided with annexation.

Finally we get to own outright all state lands in Area C which has to be worth far in excess of $200 billion.

And if we only annex Area C, we would get most of the land without most of the Arabs.

July 16, 2013 | 107 Comments »

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50 Comments / 107 Comments

  1. @ Shy Guy:
    Shy Guy said
    Yeh. The Megillah says that the ladies were pickled for 6 month stretches.

    Relax Shy Guy. There are also a lot of men who participate in drunkenness. I don’t attend ‘that part’ of Purim. I am not the lush type.

  2. @ yamit82:

    lol……no, that is not what I was referring to. You would have to be a woman to understand what I mean. It’s a liberating experience. Every woman – Jew or Gentile should attend Purim at least once in their lives but most will miss out.

  3. @ CuriousAmerican:
    If I say more Ted will get mad. But you brought it up first.

    No CA. I did not bring it up FIRST. I would not have responded in the first place if there wasn’t something to respond to.

  4. @ Shy Guy:

    Thank heavens for little girls Google Translate! I am waiting for your delivery of toffees, sweets and chocolates.

    🙂
    Shy,
    The reason I sent that song your way, is I because the key phrase, as sang by dalida, is : “words, words, words, nothing but words”… (The rest of the song, beautiful as it may be, was just the wrapping of the package)
    feiglin and sackett do deliver a beautiful speech. Their 10 reasons why Israel needs Jewish leadership are indeed spot on. I agree with each and every one of them and more! (Especially #5 to defeat its enemies, not flee from them)
    BUT
    How long does it take to realize that he has his ladder leaning on the wrong wall?
    I do not think that there is shame in admitting that “hey, I thought it’s the right thing to do… It did not work it does not seem to work, I still believe in what I said and published so let’s find a new way”

  5. @ yamit82:
    That’s not the point. The point is that millions of people believe he did exist as a Jew God in the flesh. We have a duty to respond to what is being said about a Jew whether he existed or not – because we are the ones that pay the price for falsifying information – even though it is not us that is doing it.

    There is no real proof that Esther existed either. But, we use the Purim story as an illustration and since G-d is not mentioned at all in the book of Esther we let our imagination run a little wild with it. But, we keep that to ourselves. We don’t go and bang the book of Esther over Gentiles heads and insist that they must partake in our festivities and beliefs OR ELSE. That is the basic essence of evangelical Christianity AS YOU KNOW.

    Mind you, I must say it gives me great delight to participate in Purim. There is something about it that is very empowering for a female.

  6. @ CuriousAmerican:
    CA – What came first, the Jew or the Christian? You should be learning from us. You have proved yourself to be unteachable – that’s cool. We don’t proselytize anyways so just either agree to disagree or move on. We don’t want to hear about it anymore. We know what you believe. You state it over and over and over again.

  7. the phoenix Said:

    sarcastically?

    Darlin, how could you even thnk that. CA is such a bitter fellow, he needs a little sugar. Note # 35 if Yamit 82 doesn’t take notice!!!

  8. @ honeybee:

    @ CuriousAmerican:
    @ Shy Guy:
    @ the phoenix:

    You my lovely sugar pies!!!!!!!! http://youtu.be/b07-yKnKRMQ

    Dear honey bee,
    Thank you for the beautiful video….but being in the same dish with the american and having a ‘lovely sugar pie’ attributed to us…is not exactly complimentary unless you meant it sarcastically? 🙁
    (Sorry, my honeybee deciphering app is on the blink and I am just trying to figure it out all by maaahself….

  9. honeybee Said:

    What is this “thing” your having with CA, When you could be flirtying wth me?

    Good point. I need a few seconds to refocus. be backs soon. 😉

  10. CuriousAmerican Said:

    Ask yourself why God allowed such a plague to infest you. There is a reason.

    G-d redeemed Israel from Egypt but let’s not forget is was G-d who placed the Hebrews in Egypt in the first place. It was G-d who hardened the Heart of Pharaoh, meaning he had no free will and did what he was supposed to. The whole excercize was done for the benefit of the Jews which eventually brought them to Sinai where the whole of the Jewish nation (3 million) heard G-d speak.

    Afterwards G-d challenged the Jews:

    “For ask now regarding the early days that were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens, whether there was anything like this great thing, or was the likes of it heard?” “Did ever a people hear God’s voice speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard, and live?” “Or has any god performed miracles to come and take him a nation from the midst of a[nother] nation, with trials, with signs, and with wonders, and with war and with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great awesome deeds, as all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?”

    “You have been shown, in order to know that the Lord He is God; there is none else besides Him.” “From the heavens, He let you hear His voice to instruct you, and upon the earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire,” “. and because He loved your forefathers and chose their seed after them, and He brought you out of Egypt before Him with His great strength,”

    Read the Whole of Deuteronomy 4….

  11. CuriousAmerican Said:

    Ask yourself why God allowed such a plague to infest you. There is a reason.

    “‘Beware of what I command you Today: Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivvite, and the Jebusite. Be vigilant not to seal a covenant with the inhabitants of the Land to which you are coming, since they will be a fatal trap for you.'” (Exodus 34:11-12)

    “HaShem spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan [River], at Jericho, saying, ‘Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them, “When you cross the Jordan [River] to the Land of Canaan, you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the Land from before you; and you shall destroy all their prostration stones; all their molten images shall you destroy; and all their high places shall you demolish. You shall possess the Land, and you shall settle in it; for, to you have I given the Land to possess it. … But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land from before you, those of them whom you leave shall be pins in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you upon the Land in which you dwell. And it shall be that what I had meant to do to them, I shall do to you.”‘” (Numbers 33:50-56)

    “They [Children of Israel] provoked Me with a non-god, angered Me with their vanities; so shall I provoke them with a non-people, with a vile nation shall I anger them.” (Deuteronomy 32:21)

  12. CuriousAmerican Said:

    Ask yourself why God allowed such a plague to infest you. There is a reason.

    “‘Beware of what I command you Today: Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivvite, and the Jebusite. Be vigilant not to seal a covenant with the inhabitants of the Land to which you are coming, since they will be a fatal trap for you.'” (Exodus 34:11-12)

    “HaShem spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan [River], at Jericho, saying, ‘Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them, “When you cross the Jordan [River] to the Land of Canaan, you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the Land from before you; and you shall destroy all their prostration stones; all their molten images shall you destroy; and all their high places shall you demolish. You shall possess the Land, and you shall settle in it; for, to you have I given the Land to possess it. … But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land from before you, those of them whom you leave shall be pins in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will harass you upon the Land in which you dwell. And it shall be that what I had meant to do to them, I shall do to you.”‘” (Numbers 33:50-56)

    “They [Children of Israel] provoked Me with a non-god, angered Me with their vanities; so shall I provoke them with a non-people, with a vile nation shall I anger them.” (Deuteronomy 32:21)

    G-d redeemed Israel from Egypt but let’s not forget is was G-d who placed the Hebrews in Egypt in the first place. It was G-d who hardened the Heart of Pharaoh, meaning he had no free will and did what he was supposed to. The whole excercize was done for the benefit of the Jews which eventually brought them to Sinai where the whole of the Jewish nation (3 million) heard G-d speak.

    Afterwards G-d challenged the Jews: “For ask now regarding the early days that were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens, whether there was anything like this great thing, or was the likes of it heard?” “Did ever a people hear God’s voice speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard, and live?” “Or has any god performed miracles to come and take him a nation from the midst of a[nother] nation, with trials, with signs, and with wonders, and with war and with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great awesome deeds, as all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?”

    “You have been shown, in order to know that the Lord He is God; there is none else besides Him.” “From the heavens, He let you hear His voice to instruct you, and upon the earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire,” “. and because He loved your forefathers and chose their seed after them, and He brought you out of Egypt before Him with His great strength,”

    Read the Whole of Deuteronomy 4…. Then be ashamed and show some humbleness.

  13. CuriousAmerican Said:

    Hosea – 5:15 Then I will return to my lair until they have borne their guilt and seek my face– in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”

    Notice, he returned to his lair (away from them), meaning he was with them at one point.

    I cannot say more or Yamit will call me a soul-stealer. Then again, he calls me a soul-stealer anyway.

    Been there before: You are not a good student!!! https://www.israpundit.org/archives/54389/comment-page-1#comment-275270

  14. CuriousAmerican Said:

    Ask yourself why God allowed such a plague to infest you. There is a reason.

    So that we may see the power of the one true G_D as he consumes the idolaters and enemies in spite of their numbers and venom. We are to watch how the mighty are destroyed in spite of fool jewish behavior. Dont you remember that the purpose is for you to see the one true G_D demostrate his power to the unbelieving. All the enemies converge to destroy the Jews and what is happening to them. The Jews are foolish but are being preserved while the enemies suffer and die.
    What is your prognosis for europe and the Church, there is a trend, can you see it? Like you, the church spends its time vilifying Jews while christian children are gang raped. Will your god reward such behavior?

  15. dove Said:

    My issue is that Christians like you have taken Jesus, stripped him of his Jewishness, turned him into a Gentile, deemed him G-d AND claimed him to be the King of the Jews. We dispute this for various reasons that is apparent you do not understand

    The character christians venerate as a deity never existed in fact. There is no, not a single verifiable historical piece of evidence of his existence outside of the NT.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsaRQDxmLqY

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK_cYPAtQ-U

  16. CuriousAmerican Said:

    I go to the Father through the Son (Jesus).

    Jews do not worship men as G_D, it is forbidden in the commandments. Jews go right to the one G_D.
    CuriousAmerican Said:

    He is God. God is Triune,

    the holy prayer, the shema, clearly and unequivocally states that the Lord is One. I think Christianity made a big mistake basing their religion in Judaism because it can never agree with Judaism.
    CuriousAmerican Said:

    You deny his deity

    we are not allowed to worship men as G_D.
    If you believed your stories you would not be here. why would a person of your beliefs be here. Your religion was created by pagan romans and bears no resemlance to the original jews involved in it. If your jesus comes back he will tell you that you made a mistake, after all, a practicing jew practices Judaism. This will be your revelation. So many christian children dying and you spend time in futility trying to convert Jews. Why are you here????????

  17. CuriousAmerican Said:

    Ask yourself why God allowed such a plague to infest you. There is a reason.

    you again quote christian ideology to jews saying that their rejection of jewsus is the cause of travails. but who is having the most travails today? If you were a real christian you could not be ignoring all those christian girls in pakistan being gang raped and killed by muslims. you hang here trying to convert Jews but do nothing for your own.
    CuriousAmerican Said:

    Ask yourself why God allowed such a plague to infest you.

    so that we may see their futility and watch how the enemies sink into despair and chaos all around. All around the plague rages but now they are consuming each other and rotting from within. I expect the church and europe to continue to rot and Israel to prosper. The extent of the chaos is proportionate to the extent of their belief in false idols. while youhang around trying to convert jews your christian world is dying. Their solution is to proselytize the muslims but I would sooner wager the pope converting to islam.

  18. I go to the Father through the Son (Jesus).

    He is God. God is Triune, even through you do not accept that. That is why Scripture refers to Him as Elohim.

    I know you do not accept that. One day you will.

    I never denied his Jewishness. You deny his deity and Messiahness.

    If I say more Ted will get mad. But you brought it up first.

  19. @ CuriousAmerican:

    CA – even Christian theologians agree that the ‘spirit of christ’ existed before the formation of man and has been used at various different times by The Creator – ie Moses was bestowed with this when The Creator used Moses to rescue the Israelites from Egypt.

    My issue is that Christians like you have taken Jesus, stripped him of his Jewishness, turned him into a Gentile, deemed him G-d AND claimed him to be the King of the Jews. We dispute this for various reasons that is apparent you do not understand.

    Therefore, I challenge you to take your complaint to The Creator, bypass Mary, Jesus and Joseph and go directly to the Creator. Complain all you want, scream about us all you want. Quite frankly, as a mere mortal I just don’t want to hear about it anymore.

  20. @ the phoenix:

    My best friend and a favorite relative [by narriage] are Cherokee, we call ourselves the halfbreeds. Jews can be VERY unwelcoming if you mother is not Jewiah.

  21. @ rongrand:
    They have a land willed to them and it’s infested by a plague, the Arabs.

    Ask yourself why God allowed such a plague to infest you. There is a reason.

    Hosea – 5:15 Then I will return to my lair until they have borne their guilt and seek my face– in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”

    Notice, he returned to his lair (away from them), meaning he was with them at one point.

    I cannot say more or Yamit will call me a soul-stealer. Then again, he calls me a soul-stealer anyway.

  22. rongrand Said:

    @ yamit82:

    I know you do.

    I feel for people of Israel, believe me I do.

    They have a land willed to them and it’s infested by a plague, the Arabs.

    I am not sure but could it be G-d put this obstacle in their path in order for the Jews to take charge and to show their authority over the land.

    He may want them to start at the Temple.

    Maybe I am crazy but it would not make sense to lead His people back to the Holy Land, stand by them in defending it and leave them stuck with this plague.

    No

    This just may be the results of a secular progressive Israeli government bent on self-destruction.

  23. @ Shy Guy:
    Thanks Shy. I got that info from my shul bulletin – can you believe it? It was put in there by a Jewish woman who lived in Israel for over 30 years. Is that what happens if for some reason they decide to leave Israel for the diaspora? They get the facts wrong? I will forward this correction on to her.

  24. @ honeybee:
    Oy dear honey bee…..
    I am sure that CB has no reason to complain…. But… This was more directed towards you and the american. (Well, as a logical corollary …. )
    And hence the Hebrew sentence which translates to +/- And whoever overdoes it, why so much the better…

    Yes there ARE limitations to cyber messages….. 😉

  25. the phoenix Said:

    Now dear honeybee remember to be nice to CB

    CB HAS NO REASON TO COMPLIAN,WHAT SO EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Sugar

    the phoenix Said:

    Kol hamarbeh, Harey ze m’shubach’

    Please translate, Iam a half-breed

  26. @ honeybee:

    Tex or CB loves CA, says the more curse CA the nicer I am to him.

    Now dear honeybee remember to be nice to CB. Very very nice…..
    And like in the Passover story. ‘Kol hamarbeh, Harey ze m’shubach’… 🙂
    It’s ok american….eventually you’ll get it

  27. @ NormanF:
    The Arabs hate the Jews. They cannot be assimilated and they want to take over the country. Waiting until their strength grows is not a viable solution in the long term.

    Then pay them to leave.

    If you won’t listen to me, then listen to Dr. Martin Sherman, a right-wing Zionist a Tel Aviv University. (Click Here)

    Providing generous funding for the relocation and rehabilitation of the Palestinian Arabs resident in Judea/Samaria (and eventually Gaza) in third-party countries of their choice. This should not be done through any Palestinian organization, which may have a vested interest in this measure’s failure. Instead, it should be made available directly to individual familyheads/ breadwinners, to afford them a chance to extricate themselves from the regressive and repressive regimes in these territories, and an opportunity to build a better future for themselves and their families elsewhere.

    He is essentially saying the same thing I am. He and I have similar figures.

    Yet, I am slammed and insulted for giving you an idea similar to his.

    The only difference is that he thinks he can persuade Arab/Muslim countries to take them. I don’t. That is why I recommend South America.

    Boiling it down to the bare essesence, he is saying: PAY THEM TO LEAVE!

    He is also clear that Israel will have to pay.

    I would not lay this all on Israel. I think the World Jewish Community should contribute, and any Christian who feels up to it.

    He is against a two state solution as I am.

    Yet, you hammer me. Would you hammer him?