The ‘golden age’ of Jewish immigration to Israel is over

What we now know to have been the “golden age” of Jewish immigration to the Holy Land has ended, and there is nothing that can be done to revive it. Israel’s plan to attract European Jews to Palestine is proving to be largely unsuccessful, despite what they are calling the government’s “Emergency Plan”.

Earlier this week, the Israeli government met to discuss what it called an “emergency plan” to bring large groups of Jewish immigrants from France, Ukraine and Belgium as part of their greater campaign to expand settlements in the Palestinian territories.

According to the Hebrew newspaper Yehdiot Ahronot, the government’s plan to polarise thousands of Jews from European governments will begin in full force this year. The Israeli government plans to exploit the recent anti-Semitic events in Europe to encourage Jewish immigration to Israel.

The Israeli government has allocated nearly 180 million shekels to this project, which is expected to be approved by the president and minister of immigration in a short amount of time.

Waves of immigration

George Karzam, a researcher on Jewish immigration to the Palestinian territories recently confirmed that: “Any recent immigration from abroad to the Palestinian territories has been met with a great deal of negativity in the last decade”.

In an exclusive interview, Karzam explained that Jewish immigration to Palestine reached its height during three specific periods in history; the first during Nazi rule in Germany in the 1930s, the second during the Nakba of 1948; and the third after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

Karzam went on to say that, “during the years directly following the Nakba and the establishment of Israel in the 1950s, thousands of Jewish immigrants came to Israel from Arab countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Morocco and Algeria. These states were all under British and French colonial rule.”

“Because of the aggressive nature of Israel’s settler colonial policies, each wave of Jewish immigration led to bouts of aggression that were carried out against the Palestinian people, which ultimately aimed to oppress and expel more and more facets of the Palestinian population,” he added.

In a paper he recently wrote on Jewish immigration, Karzam clarified that Israel was able to attract 550,000 Jews to Palestine up until 1948 and that it did so through its expansive network. Since 1948, successive Israeli governments have managed to encourage 3.1 million Jews to immigrant to Palestinian land. These waves of immigration took place primarily in the latter two periods mentioned above. And yet, the Karzam went on to confirm that there are no longer any motivators that encourage Jews from North America and Europe to come to Palestine.

In his research, Karzam found that a total of 77,000 Jews immigrated to Israel in 1999; the number decreased to 60,000 in 2000, falling to 34,000 in 2001 and 33,000 in 2002.

There are approximately 14 million Jews around the world, around 43 per cent of whom (approximately 6 million) live in Palestine and Israel. However, Karzam points out that the Israeli government often exaggerates these numbers by counting Israeli settlers in the census twice: once in their towns in Israel and a second time as residents of illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories. Karzam insists that the number of Jews in Palestine may not exceed 5.5 million people.

Israeli insecurity

The year 2000 constituted a monumental point in history because it marked the defeat of the Israeli military in Lebanon, whereby Israel was forced to withdraw its forces from the country. In addition, the Al-Aqsa intifada also began later that year. These two occurrences essentially ended what was known as the “golden period” of Jewish immigration to Israel, and despite the Israeli government’s attempts to revive immigration since, they have ultimately failed.

Karzam also points to the socio-economic reality of immigration by stating that many Jews residing in Europe currently enjoy being part of a society in which they retain positions of high economic standing, and that they would have to accept to be part of a lower economic class in Israel.

More importantly, many Jews are concerned for their safety and, despite the recent attacks against Jewish populations in Europe, many still feel that they have a higher sense of security in Europe then they would in Israel. Moreover, many Jews also feel that Israel as a state is no longer able to protect the Jews who are already living there.

Karzam views Israel’s inability to achieve definitive victories in Lebanon and Gaza as factors that have inhibited Jewish immigration as well. “Therefore, this ‘Emergency Plan’ that Netanyahu speaks of has already failed because there are no factors pressing the need for Jewish immigration as well the deteriorating security situation [in Israel], which is exacerbated by the state of no peace no war with the Palestinians,” he affirms.

As previously mentioned, there are very few factors that attract North American and European Jews to immigrate to Palestine. It is for this reason that Netanyahu’s government attempted to use the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks in France to encourage a new wave of Jewish immigration to Israel. The government seeks to find new immigrants to live in Israeli settlements and encourages them to immigrant by promising them housing and financial security among other benefits.

Slow response

Said Suleiman, an expert on migration inside Israel, on the other hand, says that he does not think the current hostile attitude towards Jews in Europe is very assuring because he sees that there is a growing sense of alert among European Jewish populations and “it is on this basis that many Jews will consider relocating in accordance with Netanyahu’s Emergency Plan”.

Suleiman went on to emphasise that, “This plan will directly affect Palestinian citizens of Israel living within the 1948 territories because they constitute roughly 20 per cent of Israel’s total population.”

“The Israeli government remains quite afraid of the Arab population despite the fact that it has decreased dramatically and it is for this reason that it will continue to try to encourage Jewish immigration to change the status quo,” he continued.

In a recent study of Suleiman’s that has not yet been published he writes, “As a result of Israel’s racist policies towards Palestinians living in Israel, birth rates have dropped due to the difficult living situation and increase of unemployment and the inability to acquire health insurance for children at a low cost. All of these factors can be attributed to the policy pursued by the Israeli-governments towards the Palestinian population.”

Jewish rejection of Netanyahu’s emergency plan

Both Karzam and Suleiman have emphasised their doubts concerning the success of Netanyahu’s emergency plan and believe that Israel will ultimately fail to attract Jews to immigrate to Israel.

Suleiman expressed his belief that European Jews will be slow in responding to the Israeli government’s call for immigration; whereas Karzam said that “Israel will only succeed in bringing between 5,000 t0 7,000 Jews to the area, which will have very little effect on the current demographic situation.”

In the end, many European Jews have ultimately rejected Netanyahu’s call for immigration, thereby confirming both Karzam and Suleiman’s predictions. In fact, many Jews in Demark blatantly rejected Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for immigration following attacks on a synagogue in Copenhagen on Sunday. Jib Gohel, a spokesman for the Danish community responded to Netanyahu by saying: “While it is true that we are Danish Jews, in the end we are still Danish”.

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