Why are so many Israelis rushing to leave the "promised land"?

The average annual income for an Israeli citizen is $19,000, which is 17 times greater than that of Palestinian in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel is one of the few states which have survived the current global financial crisis relatively unscathed and the security situation has improved considerably over the past few years.

Despite such positive aspects of life in the “Jewish state”, Israelis are rushing to get foreign passports and emigrate to a new life in the West.

A recent study showed that a million Israelis left the country over the past two decades. Whereas in the past, emigrants tended to move away quietly, there is now little shame in abandoning the Zionist project. Indeed, they even have seminars and conferences to discuss emigration. The results of a survey of emigrants suggests that the main question for them is not, “Why have we left Israel?” but “Why did we wait so long before leaving?”

A separate survey of young people showed that around half of settler youth would prefer to live somewhere else. Israel, they believe, is not the ideal place in which to set up home.

Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of Israeli emigrants head to Germany. Successive Israeli government have exploited Nazi Germany’s Holocaust against the Jews of Europe to justify usurping the land of Palestine. They have also extracted billions of dollars of “reparations” from the German government.

Not only have one million Israelis left in the past 20 years, but there is also a rush among those left behind to get a foreign passport. Sixty per cent of Israelis, it is claimed, have made contact with foreign embassies to apply for passports.

Around 100,000 Israelis already hold German passports; most are believed to be the descendants of German Jews who left the country before, during or after the Holocaust. Half-a-million Israelis are thought to hold dual US-Israeli citizenship; the US Immigration Department is dealing with 250,000 applications from Israelis for Green (residence) Cards and American citizenship.

Most Israelis apparently justify their migration on the basis of looking for a “better” life, even though the economic situation in Israel is good. Since almost 40 per cent of Israeli citizens were born outside the country in any case, migration is not such a big issue. Security is often cited as the main reason; it may not be too bad at the moment but they want a more stable and secure future.

Although the Israeli government is alarmed at the number of Jews leaving the supposedly “Jewish state”, it does not want to highlight the issue in case it encourages others to make the move.

The Israeli leadership recognises that the Zionist project was built on two key requirements: the seizure of Palestinian land and bringing in as many Jews as possible to settle on the land. In the light of recent data, however, it looks as if net immigration is falling. This could be the beginning of the end in Israel’s demographic battle against the indigenous Palestinians.

Migration from Israel is likely to result in big economic losses because many of those leaving are prominent in their fields as well-qualified scientists and technicians. They have an important role to play in maintaining Israel’s technological superiority, which is a mainstay of the economy. The annual income from technical industries is estimated at around $7 billion.

The “brain drain” has also affected the military and security sectors, which both rely on keeping ahead of the competition in the technology that they depend on. Notably, this is seen in the production of unmanned “drones”; aircraft which help to keep Israel in an advanced state of readiness to detect and repel strategic and existential challenges. Israel is also believed to be responsible for the development of the Stuxnet Virus which was used so effectively against Iran’s nuclear development programme. A shortage of suitably-qualified personnel is now affecting Israel’s intelligence networks as well.

The question which remains to be asked is simple: If the founding myths of Israel are true, and there are religious and ethical reasons for the establishment of the state in a land in which another people were already living, why are so many Israelis leaving “the promised land”?

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.