John Rapley

Paul Baran once coined the expression "committing suicide out of fear of death." In the April 12 edition of the New York Review of Books, the billionaire financier George Soros argues that this is just what Israel risks doing today.

It is a remarkable article. Mr. Soros makes clear his own biases: neither Zionist nor observant, he nonetheless feels sympathy with his fellow Jews and worries, as so many of them do, about the future of Israel. But this anxiety, he suggests, has led Israel to isolate itself diplomatically, and over-react to its foes.

In particular, Mr. Soros decries the Israeli policy of trying to isolate the new Palestinian unity government, since it has Hamas members who will not recognise Israel's existence (nor renounce the right to resist Israeli occupation). Whatever one thinks of Hamas, Mr. Soros argues, by helping to worsen conditions in the Palestinian territories, the Israeli government has strengthened the hand of the radicals.

Jewish paranoia

Mr. Soros blames Israeli intran-sigence largely on the inordinate influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Jewish lobby group that enjoys tremendous influence in Washington, D.C. That may be so. But Jewish paranoia may not be so surprising.

Obviously, memories of the decimation of European Jewry just over a half-century ago remain strong. But world Jewry, and in particular the Ashkenazi culture that remains so influential in the United States - which is, after all, Israel's greatest ally - have other, immediate concerns. Globally, their numbers are scarcely growing. Israel itself has had to rely on immigration to maintain its Jewish population.

Indeed, conspiracy-minded people sometimes wonder if Israel's hard line with its neighbours is calculated to make life so uncomfortable for Jews in the Muslim world that they will have no choice but to migrate to Israel. But what is less contentious is that a large question mark hangs over Israel's demographic future, for the simple reason that its population growth rate lies well behind those of its Arab neighbours.

So a siege mentality seems more or less unavoidable. In the diaspora - which is if anything more intran-sigent than Israeli society, where the rough and tumble of debate is a staple of politics - it is no doubt reinforced by recent trends. With the exception of the ultra-orthodox, the Jewish population faces long-term decline. Assimilation rates within the U.S. are high. Culturally, the gradual weakening of Yiddish culture raises alarm bells that the long-term outlook for world Jewry is bleak.

So, Israel's survival obviously emerges in a people's imagination as vital to its future. And, seemingly surrounded as Israel is by foes, a bastion mentality is not surprising.

Slow suicide

But, Mr. Soros suggests, it is damaging nonetheless. The determination not to die is leading Israel to commit slow suicide. Hamas, he insists - and he is hardly the first to make this argument - has moderates. He calls for Israel to adopt a more pragmatic stance that would strengthen their hand. Instead, the Israeli government's refusal to differentiate among the factions of Hamas has penalised everyone who cares to support the movement.

It is not even clear that the Israeli policy will achieve its goals. Cracks in the international 'coalition' against Hamas are emerging. Influential Arab governments are talking with it. So, too, are some delegates from Western countries. Despite a boycott, aid to the Palestinian territories has actually gone up. But, because it is being targeted to non-government bodies, it is arguably compounding the fragmentation of Palestine's embryonic state. And the U.S. government itself fears that Hamas militants are in the ascendant.

So Israel, says Mr. Soros, has to take a chance and emerge from its bunker.