Settling Jaffa, Acre, Lod and Ramle
By Nadav Shragai Haaretz Last update - 05:33 17/05/2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1086061.html

The maps and textbooks issued by the Palestinian Authority present a picture
of a world without Israel. Asraa, Ra'ad, and Rahaam, all of them eight years
old and originally "from occupied Safed, Acre, and Haifa," beam with pride
as they are interviewed on Palestinian television. Their friends earn high
marks and prizes for solving geography riddles about Palestine, "which
borders Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt." Catchy video snippets portray the
Jezreel Valley as "the bread basket of Palestine," and Lake Kinneret as "the
sweet water of Palestine." The country's territory, as one child points out
in one of the broadcasts, spans 27,000 square kilometers, rather than 6,220
sq. km., the area of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

In light of this display, which is both fascinating and depressing at once
and comes courtesy of the Palestinian Media Watch, mixed Arab-Jewish towns
in the country occupy a central place in the public dialogue, and not by
chance. Israel, as the state of the Jewish people, is losing its grip on
these cities. Neighborhoods and apartment buildings in which Jews have lived
in the past are being bought by Arabs. Some of these transactions are
private initiatives, while others are part of a deliberate campaign. Take,
for example, the plot near the Golani junction where a Hamas charity front
nearly succeeded in acquiring land from a cash-strapped Jew. Jewish
investors managed to raise the necessary funds, thus rescuing 50 dunams
(some 12 acres) of agricultural land.

These rescue missions do not always have a happy ending. In Upper Nazareth,
a town established over 50 years ago to solve the demographic problem posed
by Arab Nazareth, "for sale" signs adorn dozens of residential structures.
The sellers are Jews. The buyers, for the most part, are Arabs. A
residential neighborhood originally planned to house career army officers is
today inhabited by Arabs. In addition, the population of the Hakramim
neighborhood is changing. The Jews are going, the Arabs are coming.

The findings on changing demographics are published primarily in
national-religious journals, even though this process ought to concern all
Israelis wishing to maintain a Jewish state. Members of the National Union
do indeed make the effort to occasionally visit those areas in which the
national-religious public has gained a foothold, including mixed cities in
which these individuals have in recent years sought to halt the process.
Beyond that, however, there has been awful neglect.
The Israeli "mainstream," which for years has preached the need to separate
from most of the territories of Judea and Samaria in order to preserve the
Jewish character of the state; which is ready to uproot tens of thousands of
Jews from their homes in order "to save the state of Israel," today sits and
does almost nothing while within the bounds of Little Israel, that which it
seeks to allegedly "save," it is losing the demographic battle on a daily
basis.

When, for instance, did members of Peace Now last visit Carmiel? Why don't
secular youth movements emulate their brethren among the national-religious
followers who routinely send their members to strengthen the ranks of Jewish
inhabitants in mixed towns that are being abandoned by their Jewish
residents? Have they despaired of realizing the Zionist dream and achieving
a Jewish majority within the Little Israel that lies outside greater Tel
Aviv?

Or, perhaps, as some of them have delicately hinted, they consider this
effort to be racist as well? Could it be that they are bothered by the fact
that the settlers in Judea and Samaria have dispatched their best people and
rabbis to Jaffa, Acre, Lod and Ramle?

Either way, we will not win this battle with loyalty oaths, neither from the
Arab side as demanded by Avigdor Lieberman, nor from the Jewish side. This
struggle will be won by populating the settlements - as they are referred to
by Palestinians - of Acre, Lod, Ramle and towns of their ilk with Jews.