Israel's 'cloud of demographics'

Even now, nearly four months after it was first published, an article by a dovish Israeli politician continues to irritate and appall his ideological opponents. But its main point - the need for Israel to cede land - is now being voiced by more hawkish Israelis as well.

Avraham Burg, a former Speaker of the Israeli parliament and a leading defender of the idea that Israel and a Palestinian state can coexist in peace, wrote in an Israeli newspaper in August that the "Jewish people did not survive for two millennia in order to pioneer new weaponry, computer-security programs, or antimissile missiles. We were supposed to be a light unto the nations. In this we have failed."

These may be harsh words, but no one paid them much notice. Then Mr. Burg's article started to appear in translation abroad - in the US, Europe, and elsewhere - and that's when his critics started to push back.

Early this month, Cabinet Minister Uzi Landau blamed Burg and other Israeli critics of government policy for contributing to "the Jew-hatred sweeping all of Europe."

"A reasonable person has gone beyond the limits of reason, responsibility, and integrity," says Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Sallai Meridor, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization, positions Burg once held, told an audience in Jerusalem in November that Burg had "revealed a degree of understanding for baby killers."

The political got personal. Burg had asked his father-in-law, Lucien Lazare, a distinguished historian, to translate the article so it could appear in the French newspaper Le Monde. A few weeks after the piece was published, French-speaking members of Mr. Lazare's synagogue in Jerusalem wrote him an open letter, critical of Burg's ideas and Lazare's role in disseminating them to the outside world. The letter ended, "I will not shake your hand."

So while the level of Israeli-Palestinian violence may have abated in recent weeks - at least for Israeli civilians - the level of debate remains intense. A piece in the Jerusalem Post newspaper last week, under the headline, "Quietly, the ground is shaking," argued that "[a]fter three years of battle-weariness and hopelessness, people here seem ready to start creating a different future."

The impetus for this discussion - and the core of Burg's article - is the growing realization that Israel is losing the demographic war with the Palestinians, even as it emerges more or less triumphant from the battles of recent years.

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