Wednesday, August 24, 2005

European Immigration Solutions

There is an interesting article in the New York Times today that discusses Europe's problems with immigration, multiculturalism, and Muslims who have failed to assimilate into mainstream society. The gist of the piece is that Europe (and by this they mean Western Europe) is in a seemingly unsolvable dilemma, because it needs immigrants more than ever due to declining natural population growth, and yet many immigrants have not and don't seem to be able to integrate into the rest of society, with disastrous results. The article offers no solutions and appears pessimistic that an answer will be found anytime soon.

Now I don't know why Europeans (and the piece's author) consider this to be an unsolvable problem, because there is indeed an easy solution: encourage immigration from countries other than the Muslim world. There are millions and millions of people from China, India, Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America who would love to live in First World Europe, and who would very likely become hardworking, productive members of society. Sure, many of these countries are farther away than the Muslim world (except for Eastern Europe, which to be fair, does contribute a decent number of immigrants to the West), but that never stopped tens of millions of these people from immigrating to America, which is farther off still.

Europe's immigration problems do not stem from letting in too many immigrants; they stem from letting in too many radical Muslim immigrants. If the immigrants come from elsewhere, the problem is solved before it even begins.

Of course, this is not the only potential solution; immigration would not be needed at all if Europeans decided to have more babies and create more productive economies. But given the Continent's quasi-socialist welfare states that depress economic growth and make it expensive to raise kids, this scenario is unlikely to occur anytime soon. And as such, non-Muslim immigration appears to be the best answer.

Friday, August 12, 2005

Middle East History

As a follow-up to the previous post, I want to address another issue - where did the Palestinian Arabs indeed come from? If they weren't inhabitants of ancient Israel, how did they get where they are now?

First, about Arabs in general. Many people have the misperception that the entire Middle East and North Africa is made up of "Arab countries" - nations where virtually the entire population are ethnic Arabs who speak the Arabic language. In reality, this is not so. Just for starters, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey are not and have never been Arab countries. Israelis are predominantly Jews who speak Hebrew, Iran consists mainly of ethnic Persians who speak Farsi, Turks are their own ethnic group who speak Turkish, and Afghanistan consists of numerous non-Arab tribes (the largest being the Pashtuns) who have their own languages and cultures.

Furthermore, even within countries that are actually considered to be Arab nations, the label is often quite superficial. The majority populations of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya are Berbers who were conquered by Arabs in the Middle Ages and forced to accept Arab language, culture, and religion. (More on that subject here.) Throughout most of its history (until the 1975-1990 civil war that saw millions of Christians flee to other countries), Lebanon was a Christian-majority state descended from the ancient Phoenicians. Iraq, meanwhile, contains a substantial minority of non-Arab Kurds, while Egypt is home to a sizeable number of Christian Copts (the descendents of the original ancient Egyptians).

Arabs, in fact, are not indigenous to any of the above countries; they initially came from the Arabian Peninsula, and from there only. That's why they're called Arabs to begin with - because they're from Arabia. The only true native Arab countries are those within the peninsula: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait.

As for the rest of the "Arab" countries, they were forcibly conquered in the name of Islam during the Middle Ages. Think the European powers were the only colonizers back in the day? These two maps show the reality:

Arab Conquest of North Africa
Arab Conquest of Middle East

So that's how so much of the Middle East became "Arab" - through colonization little different than that of the European and other empires. A conquest, I might add, that took place about two thousand years after the first Jewish kingdom in Israel.

Archaeology the Palestinians Don't Want You to See

A big item in the news this past week was the discovery in Israel of what appears to be the Biblical palace of King David. An archaeologist digging in East Jerusalem uncovered the 3000-year old building, along with pottery shards and the government seal of an official mentioned in the book of Jeremiah.

But from the moment the discovery was announced, Palestinian Authority representatives immediately denounced the find as bogus and are desperately trying to downplay its importance. What's the big deal, you might wonder?

The answer is that it scares the PA to death. For years, the official PA party line has been that the Jews have no historical connection to the land of Israel and that they, the Palestinians, are the true indigenous population. According to their beliefs, the Jewish temples never existed and modern day Jews are European colonialists who came to oppress the native Palestinian Arabs and steal their land.

But each archaeological discovery in Israel just keeps on testifying to the historical Jewish presence (and lack of an Arab presence) in the land, and there's nothing the PA can do about this except to deny reality.

Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Gaza Disengagement = A Terrible Idea

The battle over disengagement from the Gaza Strip has been raging for months in Israel, and with the planned evacuation set to take place in just a couple weeks, TheSolidSurfer.com wishes to state unequivocally that this is a terrible idea for Israel.

There is no logical reason or justification for expelling your own people and giving land away to an enemy who openly declares its desire to destroy your country. Ariel Sharon is making a grave mistake, although the more Israelis that turn against it (and many are doing so every day), the greater the hope that the government will change course at the last minute.

The pro-disengagement rationale is that Israel can't afford to continue devoting massive amounts of resources and soldiers (whose lives are at risk) to defend 8000 Gazan Jews against the hostile Palestinians who surround them. And so, the rationale goes, Israel would be better off by separating entirely and removing its people. Furthermore, the Palestinians keep saying that their terrorism is a result of the "occupation" and so this is the first step toward ending it. Sounds all nice and dandy, right?

Wrong - this explanation is pure sugar coating and denial. In reality, the "occupation" that the Palestinians rail against is not just Gaza and the West Bank; it's all of Israel. Palestinian terror attacks against Israel took place far before Israel ever had a presence in the territories. From 1948 to 1967, Gaza was part of Egypt and the West Bank part of Jordan, and yet the PLO formed in 1964 with the stated goal of liberating the "occupied land of Palestine." Hmmm, wonder what that could be referring to? (Hint - it wasn't the West Bank or Gaza.)

Giving Gaza to the Palestinians, then, would be perceived as completely capitulating to their terrorist attacks, just as PLO and Hamas leaders have of course repeatedly expressed in celebration. This is not exchanging land for peace; it's exchanging land for more terrorist attacks and war, which is nothing but outrageous. Most of Sharon's top advisors were naturally against this, and so he fired them and replaced them with new ones. It'd be one thing if giving away Gaza would truly lead to peace, but in this case it's virtually 100% certain that it won't.

This further exposes the ineptness of the pro-disengagement thinking as well, because Israel will still have to devote the same amount of soldiers and resources to defending Jews; only this time, the soldiers will have to be stationed deeper inside Israel. Right now, they're protecting Gush Katif, but after a disengagement, they'd be protecting Ashkelon and Sderot.

So, as you can see, the logic behind the disengagement really makes no sense at all. And that's without even getting into the tragedy that Israel's government plans to uproot 8000 peaceful citizens from their homes simply because they live amongst a hostile Palestinian population. That's not the Jews' fault - it's the Palestinians', completely. If the Palestinians want a state of their own, they should be prepared to accept a Jewish minority population. If Israel can do it (one fifth of Israel's citizens are Arabs), then it's totally outrageous and anti-Semitic for Palestinians to claim that they'll only accept a state free of Jews. Until the Palestinians can do this, they're not ready for a state, period.

The rationale behind disengagement is pure lunacy, and Israel needs to turn the situation around quickly. For more resources on the subject, Israel Insider is an excellent place to start.