Who is a Refugee?

There is a question of whether all the descendants of Arabs who left the land of Israel/Palestine in 1948 can still be considered refugees. The number of Arabs who left in 1948 were a few hundred thousands, but their descendants number in the millions. If they are all refugees, then logically my grandchildren, my children, and I must be refugees because my parents and grandparents were refugees who came to America to escape persecution in the Russian Empire. But actually my grandchildren, my children, and I are not refugees. We certainly don't perceive ourselves to be refugees. The descendants of Jewish refugees from Arab countries (most of whom live in Israel) do not consider themselves to be refugees and do not receive any help from the U.N. The problem is that the Arab nations surrounding Israel use the Palestinian refugees as pawns in opposing Israel, and even the Palestinian leaders do the same.

Israel Needs More Israelis, Whoever They Are

Immigrants are a source of strength and progress for a country. The United States was built into the strong and innovative nation that it is by immigrants. Families who have lived in a country for generations often find life too easy and lose their drive for success. Immigrants tend to be hungry and hard working. The recent anti-immigration attitude by exremists in the USA has had a negative effect on our American economy. The State of Israel did a miraculous ingathering and assimilation of Jews from all over the world who spoke various languages and came from various cultures during its early years. Since then most of the rest of us have been comfortable staying where we are. Although some purists might want the rest of us to come over, it won't happen. Now, Israel needs immigrants from wherever, Jewish or not. The foreign workers who speak Hebrew and their assimilated children who grew up in Israel but don't happen to be Jewish should stay in Israel if they want to. This should be done for the sake of Israel to keep Israel strong. Everything possible should be done to assimilate Moslem and Christian Israeli Arabs and to encourage Israeli Jews to accept them as equals. Every effort should be made to assimilate African refugees and put them to work. Israel is predominantly Jewish, and will more likely stay that way if you don't worry so much about it. Just look at us? We Jews/Hebrews are a racially and culturally diverse group of people who are not all necessarily religious Jews but share a common history. If other people come to share that history by assimilating into the Israeli culture and language, then are they so different than our Hebrew, Polish, Spanish, Roman, and myriad other ancestors who also joined us (in the olden days through the Jewish religion)? Of course Israel is a small country and has to set limits on immigration, but the Negev is still big and needs to be developed. Narrow minded people like Eli Yishai, Israel's interior minister, who seems to think that any non-Jewish immigrant threatens Israel's integrity, do not do Israel a service. In fact they themselves are Israel's greatest threat. Israel needs a miraculous immigration and assimilation policy like the one it did in the early years of the ingathering, but now for anyone who can offer a service to Israel.

Israel's Defense

Israel is a small country surrounded by Arab and Moslem countries with an overwhelmingly larger population, many of whom have been taught for the generations to hate Jews and Israel. These surrounding lands have been generally ruled by dictators and monarchs who have used Israel as a scapegoat for their own shortcomings. The "democratic" governments that have recently replaced those autocracies in the "Arab Spring" have not shown themselves to be any friendlier to Israel than their predecessors. In fact, freedom of speech has often revealed more hatred than before. Israel over the years has come to an understanding with many of those Arab countries, but the instability of those governments has led to the question of how much can Israel trust those countries with the present shifting of power there. The armistice lines of 1948 have given Israel a long and tortuous border with all of Israel situated close to the border, particularly the areas of greatest population density. Attempts by earlier liberal governments to create 2 separate states, Israel and Palestine, failed miserably. The rapproachment between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs in the 1990s led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority but collapsed when Yasser Arafat rejected the Clinton/Barak plan for a Palestinian state and instead started the Second Intifada with suicide bombers. A first stage attempt to unilaterally force the creation of a Palestinian state by withdrawing from Gaza resulted in a Hamas government sworn to the destruction of Israel which caused or allowed rockets to be fired into Israel.
Israel's defense against a surrounding larger population in which most people detest israel and would be happy to see it disappear, is its greater technological advancement and military power.
In the Israeli population, the zealots and settlement people are a minority and the majority are mainly relatively secular Mediterranean people (probably most similar to the people of the European Mediterranean coast) who don't like the settlements, desperately wish for peace and normal life, and don't want to control the Palestinian territories. But the normal majority in Israel has been disillusioned by their experience with their neighbors over the years. Add to that a Jewish history of persecution for two thousand years culminating in the holocaust which killed 1/3 of all the Jews in the world. No wonder Israelis have elected a xenophobic government. But xenophobia is contrary to the Zionist ideal. Zionism is supposed to take Jews out of the ghetto, not turn Israel into a new kind of ghetto.
Israel's technical and military superiority is mainly because of the ingenuity, bravery, and hard work of the people of Israel, but it is also partly because of the help it gets from Jews and non-Jews in other parts of the world. Some of that help is given unconditionally, but some is given with the understanding that Israel has a purpose. In our tradition, we Jews are supposed to be a good example for eveyone else. The purpose of Israel should not be to repopulate the ancient Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), putting real estate ahead of peace and fairness. Israel should be a beacon of modernity and democracy in a part of the world that desperately needs that. I don't believe in the concept of Jewish "birth right". Israel exists because it exists, however it came about. If the armistice lines happened to exclude part of Eretz Yisrael so be it. Smooth out the lines for a defensible position and move on. If everything else can be resolved, I'm sure some equitable solution can be ultimately found for Jerusalem. As intransigent as the Arabs might be, you have to keep trying to make peace. What else can you do? Israel is there and the Arabs live around it. That won't change.
Actually, there have been glimmers of hope. The SESAME project is one. It is a physics project located in Jordan which includes Israel, a number of Arab countries, Iran, Turkey, and Cyprus. Another glimmer is trade between Israel and its neighbors. It is conducted below the radar, but it exists. Another glimmer is in the reception by ordinary Iranians of the music of Persian Jewish Israeli singer Rita Jahanforooz. Her music is popular in Israel and has recently become popular among young Iranians in spite of the government.
So let us hope that the time will  come soon when Herzl's dream will fully come to pass, an Israel based on Jewish (Hebrew) values, democratic for all its inhabitants, a haven for oppressed Jews (and some non-Jews integrated into the Hebrew Israeli culture), which does not have to worry about its Jewishness, which can be an example of modernity to its region of the world.

Egyptian Democracy?

Recently, people in Egypt have been rioting because the former leader of their country, Hosni Mubarak, was given a life sentence instead of execution. In a democracy, when a leader leaves office, no matter how bad a job he has done, he goes back to a normal private life. Is the blood thirsty mob an improvement over Mubarak? No wonder the people of Israel are skeptical of any arrangement they make with their Arab neighbors. Practicality means that Israel has to make compromises for a chance of peace, but it has to be pursued cautiously and with keeping a balance of power weighted in Israel's favor.