Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy sparked controversy this week by writing that the Jews of the West Bank, specifically those most ideologically driven by Torah, Jewish history and a commitment to Eretz Yisrael, are multiplying at an alarmingly high rate.
In an opinion piece titled The Explosive Natural Increase of Israeli Settlers, Levy called this “demographic problem” the root of all evil, warning that West Bank Jews “are multiplying too quickly” and will soon become more dominant in Israeli society.
“They’re having too many children,” he railed. “If they weren’t multiplying so much, our situation would be much better. That’s the truth, it should be stated courageously and honestly. You can’t drive the roads in the West Bank without coming across them and their innumerable children.”
“[Member of Knesset Betzalel] Smotrich, for example, has seven children. That’s the crux of it the fertility of the Smotriches. If they were a little more Western, they would make fewer children. They should be educated toward this, perhaps a law should be passed, perhaps IUDs should be a requirement.”
Continuing to focus on the Yamina party lawmaker, Gideon Levy stressed that Smotrich “has more children than the most fertile Bedouin community, Lakiya, where they produce 6.05 children per family. Smotrich has already produced seven. That should worry and frighten every Israeli.”
To be fair, it should be noted that Levy’s words were in response to similarly disgusting statements made last Thursday by Smotrich and fellow Yamina MK Naftali Bennett against the Bedouin community. But the Haaretz columnist’s tirade also expresses a deep fear that has been building within Israel’s Liberal-Zionist ruling class in recent years.
Gideon levy is a prominent voice amongst the elites who control most of Israel’s wealth, the judicial system, academia and the mainstream press.
This group, which styles itself the guardians of Israeli “democracy” (a synonym for westernization), often displays a strong sense of entitlement that the state belongs to them and should function as an outpost of Western civilization in the Semitic region. This mentality, which has dominated the thinking of Labor- and Liberal-Zionism for a century, essentially seeks a Rhodesia-style Israel in pre-1967 borders run by an “enlightened” ruling class.
It’s not surprising that Gideon Levy and his Eurocentric bourgeois friends see West Bank Jewish birthrates as threatening, just as they see ḥaredi and Palestinian birthrates as threatening. The demographic trends indicate very clearly that Israel is transforming into a very different country that will no longer represent the interests of the ruling class or the Western agendas they promote.
While those genuinely interested in Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation and the Jewish state becoming an organic part of the Semitic region have reason to be hopeful, the Liberal-Zionist elites have good cause for concern. Those with a deeper understanding for why Israel came back to life after centuries of dispersement and a vision for the state more in line with Hebrew values are becoming stronger in society, and it’s only a matter of time until those representing foreign interests lose their control over the country’s wealth and dominant institutions.
What would really accelerate this process, and give Gideon Levy and the rest of Israel’s westernized elites even more reason to panic, would be if the West Bank Jews and ḥaredi community could successfully unite with Palestinians on a shared vision for the direction the state should take moving forward.
Such an alliance could ultimately change the game and redraw the country’s entire political map.
The erev rav are getting desperate as their time is coming to an end.
“…You can’t drive the roads in the West Bank without coming across them and their innumerable children.”
Psalm 127:3 Lo, children are a heritage of the L-RD; The fruit of the womb is a reward.
What would really accelerate this process, and give Levy and the rest of Israel’s westernized elites even more reason to panic, would be if the West Bank Jews and ḥaredi community could successfully unite with Palestinians on a shared vision for the direction the state should take moving forward.
But aren’t the West Bank Jews and Haredi the least likely candidates to unite with the Palestinians? And generally the most virulently anti-Palestinian?