Jewry's shrinkage vis-à-vis Palestinians

Tel Aviv sought to attack Lebanon and destroy the resistance movement in the country. Prolongation of the war and its overspill into Israel, though, left Tel Aviv no doubt that it should cease fire without having achieved the objectives it had determined in advance.

After a couple of days, the circumstances made ceasefire imperative for Israel. George W. Bush's administration, however, wanted it to carry on with its attacks and would ignore Tel Aviv's desperately urging the ratification of the ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council.

The armistice was finally implemented. The Israeli Winograd Commission, tasked with investigating the war, came to an important conclusion: Israel was defeated.

Now, Israeli [Defense] Minister Ehud Barak says one of the outcomes of the 33-Day War was calm in Lebanon's border with Israel over the past five years.

He himself knows how unstable the calm is and Israel's slightest offensive or military blunder could send thousands Hezbollah's of missile flying towards Tel Aviv and Israel's populous areas. Tel Aviv can never win a war, which could spill over into Israel.

The defeat also occasioned the Israelis' distrust in the military. In Israel, everything depends on the force and its stability. Its failure equals the collapse of everything. Israel is among the few entities whose military took form before the so-called 'Declaration of Independence' and formation of the government.

The distrust was followed by the Jews departure from the occupied Palestinian lands. A new survey in Israel shows that between 800,000 and 1,000,000 or 13 percent of Israelis currently live outside Israel. Now, calculate the number of people, which the percentage represents in your own country to grasp its enormity.

For Israeli leaders, the departure translates to endangerment of the entity's future and a threat to the plan of Zionism. In the first decade to follow Israel's creation, around 100,000 Jews left forever. In 1980, the figure rose to 270,000 or seven percent of the population at the time before reaching the current 13 percent.

Official research in Israel shows that the emigrants leave in pursuit of better welfare as well as employment opportunities, higher education and also due to their pessimism about the prospect that Tel Aviv will make peace with the Palestinians. The Israelis are not yet prepared to confess that the war against Lebanon did not conclude on its 33th day and that the entity continues to be afflicted with its aftermath.

Many of the emigrants say the question is not why they left Israel, but why they remained there so long.

A recent poll has indicated that half of the Jewish population of the occupied territories prefer to migrate from Israel if they have the opportunity, because Israel is not in a good situation.

Their ability to migrate is another reason behind their departure. About 40 percent of the Israelis were born in other countries, thus returning to their homeland is not construed as treason for them. Israeli emigrants cannot take part in elections and find themselves in the periphery of the Israelis' society.

According to recent studies, about 60 percent of the Israelis have contacted -- or plan to contact -- foreign embassies to apply for the residency and passport of their countries. About 100,000 Israelis have German passport, and the demand for getting a German passport is increasing because many Israelis claim that they have German roots.

It should be added that a large number of Israelis have a dual nationality. About 500,000 Israelis have hid a US passport in their bag, while about 250,000 others have filed an application for a US passport.

The Israelis face a big problem to keep their demographic superiority. The Israelis currently have a 75-percent superiority but the ratio is getting lower due to their low reproduction rate and the high rate of reverse migration. However, the population of the Palestinians is increasing, and Israelis will lose the majority in a few decades. In 1957, the ratio of the Israelis' population to Palestinians was 89 percent because they displaced a large number of Palestinians and attracted many immigrants, but this ratio will reduce to about 30 percent by 2050.

When a large number of Israelis are going abroad, what can make the Jewish emigrants, who are integrated and absorbed well in other societies, come to Israel? A fourth of the young Israelis who have migrated to European countries are married to non-Jewish people, and do not take part in any Jewish activities. The reverse migration is corroding the Zionism ideology.

Occupying Lebanon in 1978 did not have any benefit for Israel, and led to its escape in 2000 and then a defeat in the 2006 war. The leaders' attempt to ideologize Israel by making it a pure Jewish country seems rigid and reactionary, and is incongruous with the requirements of the modern world.