[Peace-discuss] Worries about overpopulation at a liberal institution

[Karen Medina]

Wouldn't it just be cheaper and easier to give the Palestinians some
of their land back, a way to make a living (free trade), and basic
human rights
Then the babies being born today would not become "radical" adults 18
years from now.


On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 2:34 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
>        Harvard Fellow calls for genocidal measure to curb Palestinian births
>        Report, The Electronic Intifada, 22 February 2010
>
> A fellow at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International
> Affairs, Martin Kramer, has called for "the West" to take measures to curb
> the births of Palestinians, a proposal that appears to meet the
> international legal definition of a call for genocide.
>
> Kramer, who is also a fellow at the influential Washington Institute for
> Near East Policy (WINEP), made the call early this month in a speech at
> Israel's Herzliya conference, a video of which is posted on his blog
> ("Superfluous young men," 7 February 2010).
>
> In the speech Kramer rejected common views that Islamist "radicalization" is
> caused by US policies such as support for Israel, or propping up despotic
> dictatorships, and stated that it was inherent in the demography of Muslim
> societies such as Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-occupied Gaza
> Strip. Too many children, he argued, leads to too many "superfluous young
> men" who then become violent radicals.
>
> Kramer proposed that the number of Palestinian children born in the Gaza
> Strip should be deliberately curbed, and alleged that this would "happen
> faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies to Palestinians with
> refugee status."
>
> Due to the Israeli blockade, the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza are
> now dependent on UN food aid. Neither the UN, nor any other agencies,
> provide Palestinians with specifically "pro-natal subsidies." Kramer
> appeared to be equating any humanitarian assistance at all with inducement
> for Palestinians to reproduce.
>
> He added, "Israel's present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim --
> undermine the Hamas regime -- but if they also break Gaza's runaway
> population growth, and there is some evidence that they have, that might
> begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of
> superfluous young men." This, he claimed, would be treating the issue of
> Islamic radicalization "at its root."
>
> The 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
> Genocide, created in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, defines genocide to
> include measures "intended to prevent births within" a specific "national,
> ethnic, racial or religious group."
>
> The Weatherhead Center at Harvard describes itself as "the largest
> international research center within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts
> and Sciences." In addition to his positions at Harvard and WINEP, Kramer is
> "president-designate" of Shalem College in Jerusalem, a far-right Zionist
> institution that aspires to be the "College of the Jewish People."
>
> Pro-Israel speakers from the United States often participate in the the
> Herzliya conference, an influential annual gathering of Israel's political
> and military establishment. This year's conference was also addressed by The
> New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and, in a first for a Palestinian
> official, by Salam Fayyad, appointed prime minister of the Ramallah-based
> Palestinian Authority.
>
> Kramer's call to prevent Palestinian births reflects a long-standing Israeli
> and Zionist concern about a so-called "demographic threat" to Israel, as
> Palestinians are on the verge of outnumbering Israeli Jews within Israel,
> and the occupied Palestinian territories combined.
>
> Such extreme racist views have been aired at the Herzliya conference in the
> past. In 2003, for example, Dr. Yitzhak Ravid, an Israeli government
> armaments expert, called on Israel to "implement a stringent policy of
> family planning in relation to its Muslim population," a reference to the
> 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel.
>
>        ###
>
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-- 
karen medina
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
"In this universe, we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and
the ability to ask questions." (Mary Oliver, American poet)
A third gift is the ability to laugh. (Jenifer, a friend)

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