Backstories

There is something rather disturbing about the whole concept of time. When one is very young, every hour and every day is too long but when one grows older, every hour and every day is fleeting, and yet, time remains constant whether young or old. I am most definitely in the time is fleeting camp. I wish I could capture time within my hand and measure it out a little bit at a time so there could finally be enough time to do all that I am compelled to do in any given hour or day. Alas, I have no such hands or luck.

So blogging may or may not be almost existent. Although there was something which caught my eye at the Toronto Star and I just wanted to note for future reference. It is a classic case of agenda manipulation in the media.

JERUSALEM – The mayor of Jerusalem and the prime minister of Israel are both in serious denial – or they are if you ask Menachem Klein."I wonder how these people can maintain loyalty to their own statements," Klein, a research fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, said yesterday. "For the time being, they live in denial."

Klein was referring to declarations on the status of Jerusalem issued this week by Nir Barkat, the city's recently elected mayor, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both men took advantage of the celebration Thursday of Jerusalem Day to vow that the so-called City of Peace will never again be divided, as it was between 1948 and 1967, when Israel controlled the western city, while East Jerusalem was ruled by neighbouring Jordan.

According to Klein, such statements not only diminish the prospects of Middle East peace. They also fly in the face of at least two demographic and political realities. First, Jerusalem is already divided – split between a Jewish city in the west and a predominantly Arab city in the east, a situation that four decades of Israeli occupation have not managed to reverse.

Also, Jerusalem's Arab minority, which now represents 35 per cent of the city's total population, is growing at three times the rate of the Jewish community. Klein says Arabs will form a majority in the city in 10 to 15 years.How, he asks, will Israel – which prides itself on being both a Jewish and a democratic state – continue to claim sovereignty over a national capital that soon will be peopled primarily by Arabs?

Oddly enough, Klein makes these statements despite demographic information published from his own institute. Ha’aretz carried an article on the declining Arab birthrate in Jerusalem last July.

Fertility rates in Jerusalem have been declining among Arabs and rising among Jews in recent years, according to statistics the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies issued to mark Jerusalem Day, today.

Among Arabs the rate has dropped to 4 children in 2006, from 4.3 in 2000, and among Jews it has risen to 3.9 children in 2006 from 3.7 in 2000. However, the ratio of Jews and Arabs hasn't changed - 66 percent Jews (489,480) and 34 percent Arabs (256,820) totaling 746,300 at the end of 2007.

Of course, most of us sitting in Toronto wouldn't have a clue that Klein is purposely undermining demographics published by his own institute. There is only one reason for him to do so and in three words the why is – hard left politicking. And the Toronto Star Middle East bureau eats up every word Klein spews out. Klein was one of the advisers to the ill-fated Oslo Accords but has been actively promoting the Geneva Accord as well. Go google him, as I don't have the time.