There is nothing comfortable writing about the demographic balance in the Galilee. Even those who are most committed to the Zionist cause are no longer talking about "Judaizing the Galilee." Instead, they make do with the more antiseptic phrase "achieving a balance." According to the Talmudic tractate Bava Metzia, whoever finds a piece of meat in the Galilee is entitled to eat it. That's assuming, of course, that the meat is kosher. After all, what kind of non-Jew would ever find himself in the Galilee? Is there anyone who could conceive of such a question in contemporary times? The area which currently encompasses the Galilee -- the same Galilee that was spoken of by Yehudah Hanasi from the time of the Mishnah; the same Galilee that was home to Yosef Caro; the same Galilee that was the focal point of Ariel Sharon's massive settlement plan of the late 1970s -- speaks Arabic. The Jews are a minority. Some may wonder, "So what? So there is a large swath of land that is devoid of Jews? So what-" In 2014, it is no longer possible to speak in the same terms as the late 1970s, when the Galilee settlement plan was being discussed. At the time, the government wanted to dot the landscape with Jewish townships that would serve as buffer zones which would make it impossible for any future demands for Arab autonomy. These days, such talk is verboten. Our difficulty in finding the right words on this issue while trying to stay within the bounds of political correctness is paralyzing us in our efforts to apply our sovereignty, the sovereignty of a Jewish state, the sovereignty of a democratic state. Both of these concepts are nonexistent in certain parts of this beautiful, green country, from the selective enforcement of laws by the police in the interest of maintaining "quiet," to making common cause with terrorist elements. There are five subdivisions in the Interior Ministry's northern district: the Golan Heights; Beit Shean and the surrounding valleys; the lower Galilee; Safed; and Acre. Less than half the population -- 43.4 percent -- in this area, which stretches from the Syrian border to the Mediterranean Sea, is Jewish. If one discounts Beit Shean and the Golan Heights, that statistic falls to 34 percent. We are talking about a massive swath of territory, one that starts from Afula and extends northward. This demographic imbalance has given birth to imbalances and discrepancies in other areas, like the economy, industry, taxation, law enforcement, and national identity. Most of the Arab villages in the Galilee do not have signs or street names, and the extremist Islamic Movement is moving into the vacuum. The island known as Carmiel Does the Zionist vision end with Route 6? "The reality here is getting progressively more complicated," said Ofir Shik, one of the founders of the Lev B'Galil initiative, the brainchild of the state-run Galilee Development Authority. "The amount of development that the state is pouring into the Galilee today is standard, and this at a time when this needs to be a national priority." A father of four who completed his service in an elite Israel Defense Forces unit and who graduated after having studied political science and education, Shik is a native of a settlement, but he was drawn to the Galilee by a magnetic pull. Today he makes his home on Kibbutz Beit Rimon. Shik, who founded the secular pre-military preparatory academy in Upper Nazareth four years ago, is the Band-Aid whose job is to be the bridge between the municipal authorities, the relevant government ministries, the non-government organizations, and the agencies that have made the north a focal point of their activities. His job isn't to initiate, but to be the catalyst. I took a lengthy trip with him that lasted the whole day. Sixty-seven years after the U.N. partition plan was rejected, it seems to have come back to life. The center of the Galilee appears to have slipped through our fingers. Zionism has evaporated into the air here along with the plumes of dust that are kicked up by the pirate quarries dotting the landscape. The lack of a strong, centralized government that enforces building and zoning laws serves to further strengthen the nationalist group with the highest potential of disengaging from the state. In some instances, they even openly express their hostility toward the state. The chasm that resulted from the events of October 2000 is often mentioned. That was a time when roadways were sealed off and armored personnel carriers snaked through the mountains of the region, bringing bread and milk to towns that had been cut off. Those of us in the center of the country have already forgotten that period, but in the Galilee, not all has been forgotten. While it is calm on the security front, the sources of tension are still there. The socio-economic gaps also do not help the situation. There is talk of the relatively high level of education among the Arab population that is not being exploited properly. Of all the Arab students learning engineering and science, just 20 percent will find work in their chosen profession. Every year, more than 500 Arab students complete their bachelor's degrees in fields that prepare them for high-tech, but an absolute majority of them cannot get hired. The potential is crushed, and the frustration is tremendous. We are in Carmiel, one of three cities that were born in the planning rooms. It was built after Arad, and before Modiin. A new trend has taken hold recently, as 10 percent of Carmiel's residents are Arabs seeking a better quality of life. Most of them are upper middle class with professions such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants. Carmiel only benefits from this infusion of high-quality folks. Alongside this positive trend, the city is also suffering from a jump in crime emanating from the adjacent villages. There are house robberies, instances of sexual harassment, noise pollution caused by booming car stereos, and youths being caught engaging in sexual relations on the site of the IDF fallen heroes' memorial. Carmiel is an island. It is surrounded by Ra'ama, Sajur, Naahaf, Dir el-Assad, Ba'ana, Majd el-Kroum, Kabul, Sakhnin, Arabe, and Dir-Hana. The population ratio in the Beit Hakerem valley is 4:1 in favor of the Arabs. The struggle being waged by a number of Bedouin families who were ruled to have illegally established their residence within the city limits -- and were thus issued with eviction orders -- threatens to be the spark that falls onto the oil slick, setting off an inferno. Arab members of Knesset who whip up rallies and rail against "the abuse" of Bedouin are pulling the wagon hard down the slippery slope of nationalist conflict. Adi Eldar has been mayor of Carmiel for a quarter century. "I'm not trying to Judaize the Arabs," he said. "I'm not against the Arabs. I'm for the Jews. You won't catch me saying that I want to see fewer Arabs here, but I do want to see more Jews. My Zionist worldview says that the borders of the state are determined not by its fences, but by its population. An area that is devoid of Jews is an area that we will lose in the future. There are historical precedents in which minorities comprised a majority in certain areas of a country and on the basis of this demanded autonomy. This will happen here as well. "I'm happy that we have good relations with the Arab townships around us, but there are all sorts of trends on the Arab street. The 'Nakba,' for example, is a new concept. We didn't hear about it for 40, 50 years, and all of a sudden this day is marked with processions and people waving PLO flags. Arab members of Knesset are preserving the national memory and nurturing hopes and ambitions that one day something will happen here, that there will be a sovereign entity here that will be founded on the basis of the PLO charter. "We need to return to the terminology of the 1970s -- that means bringing more Jews here, creating a critical mass of Jewish immigration, establishing a buffer between the large Arab blocs, and halting the emigration of Jews from the area," he said. In the impressive conference room, one can find hanging on the wall a map where all of the areas that were hit by rockets during the Second Lebanon War are marked. A yellow star indicates that over 50 rockets landed in a particular area, while an orange star indicates at least 100. A red star represents at least 200 rockets. The map is bleeding red -- Maalot, Safed, Acre, the Krayot, Haifa. It's a dark red. Carmiel is orange. "The home front is the front," reads the bewildering slogan on top of the map. 'The people of Israel's test' When we return to the car, I let out a sigh. After all, there is no war here. These are legitimate citizens of Israel. Why is it so hard to find the right words? In another piece of terrain which I know quite well -- Judea and Samaria -- the fault lines are known and clear to all. "In another 10 years, we will find ourselves in a similar scenario here to what we are experiencing in Judea and Samaria," Shik said as he started the engine. "You won't be able to give me the standard refrain I hear from the left whenever they tell the settlers, 'Go to the Galilee and the Negev.' My support for the settlements is etched in stone. I didn't leave the settlements out of despair. But a smart person sees years ahead. This is where the nation of Israel will be tested. If we don't wake up, in another 20 years the State of Israel will be the center of the country, with a periphery of 20 kilometers northward and 20 kilometers southward. "You see, even you and I can't talk about a Jewish and democratic state without squinting with discomfort. There has been a blurring of the lines, where exclamation points have been turned into question marks of post-modernism. We must as a society re-evaluate where we are as a country and where we are headed." Shik speaks to me about the great cultural light that we forgot about and which lies between Route 77 and the northernmost highway: the Galilean Jewish moderation; the interesting ideas. How is it that this is the region that spawned the Talmud? Now we are left to ponder operative plans, like the reform of the national master plan, the promotion of the Galilee as a destination for olim communities from abroad, encouraging high-tech companies to relocate their plants up north, bolstering the public transportation system, building pre-military preparatory academies with an industrial bent, putting up signs in Arab townships and municipalities. Everything can be done if all state agencies cooperate -- the Prime Minister's Office, the Negev and Galilee Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Economy Ministry, the Housing Ministry, the Education Ministry, the Welfare Ministry, the Jewish Agency, and the Jewish National Fund. The employment situation in the Galilee is quite bad. Young people are leaving for the center of the country in search of the means to make a living. There is a dearth of high-quality jobs. Many work in positions for which they are overqualified simply because there is no work that is commensurate with their skills. The unemployment rate in the Galilee is higher than the national average -- 9.2 percent, as opposed to 6.9 percent throughout the country. This is how we settle Is it all bad? Are there no engines of growth? What about government investments? The truth is that the best reinforcements rise to the surface independently. The Otzarot Hagalil ("Treasures of the Galilee") initiative started by philanthropist Raya Strauss Bendror (the sister of Miki Strauss) is a great example. The launching point comprises vacation cottages and restaurants. She's not waiting for the State of Israel. Instead, she's taking advantage of the western Galilee's ability to attract tourism, which she believes is key to encouraging migration and economic growth. Four hundred business owners in the tourism field are listed in the initiative's application, and they also receive valuable marketing assistance from her. One of those business owners is Yonat Mazan from the Alto dairy farm on Kibbutz Shomrat. Mazan fed me excellent goat cheese and made sure to pour me plenty of cappuccino, with goat milk instead of regular milk. She even gave me a lecture on the difference between thieves and shepherds. It was the type of discussion one could only hear in the Galilee. Another example of a bid to push the Galilee forward is Ofakim Latid ("Horizons for the Future"), an NGO based in the Druze town of Maghar. We arrive there to receive an infusion of Zionism from our Druze brothers. Awaiting us in the headquarters of the NGO are 20 youths who are participating in the venture. They are terribly polite. They are also part of a new network of action-oriented communities. It is a very optimistic network which is currently operating in eight Druze villages. "It's important for us to preserve ties between the Druze community and Israeli society and the State of Israel," said Ali Ara'aida, 39, one of the founders of the NGO who recently completed his military service as a noncommissioned officer. "After 14 years of army service, I came out of the military and saw that there were thousands of challenges out there, like a crisis in leadership and a crisis in identity." Some of the activities here are similar in nature to those that one would normally see in youth movements. There is even a separation according to gender, age, and other criteria. There are also groups being prepared for military service as well as learning centers. The young people sitting down with me around the long table are graduates of the leadership course. There are also programs for female empowerment. In some Druze villages, one can find ecological gardens with recycled bottles. Ara'aida's kids show me a tourism brochure which features a special guided tour for visitors to Maghar that they designed themselves. "We don't want whining, we don't want an attitude of 'I deserve it,' we want to be a strong group, an influential group, a Zionist group," one of them said. "We will clean our streets. We won't wait for someone else to do it." The lofty talk about a demographic balance is revisited during lunch. A moving group of ideologically motivated young people is set to break ground on a new settlement known as Shibolet along the ridge that hugs the Toran Hill. Shibolet is designed to be a communal village in which people with special needs will live in a normative setting, blending in to become an inseparable part of the landscape. The idea for the settlement is in line with a government decision to create a contiguous residential strip between the Beit Rimon settlements and Mitzpeh Natufa. If and when they overcome the challenges posed by environmental groups, the plan is to begin construction this summer. This is how settlement is done. Defying the laws of nature Our optimism fades upon arrival in Nazareth. Upper Nazareth is a Jewish town, unlike its Arab neighbor, Nazareth, which is 70 percent Muslim. In the last decade, a fifth of Upper Nazareth's Jewish residents left the town, only to be replaced by Arabs. This infusion of Arab residents has the municipality worried. A large Israeli flag -- probably the biggest I've ever seen -- flutters on the slope leading away from the Har Yonah neighborhoods. The mayor of Upper Nazareth, Alex Gadalkin, is suffering from sore hands from knocking on so many doors. He wants a government plan that would map out a strategy for the city, preferably one that would offer pinpoint solution, just like that which was applied in Acre. The facts and figures attest to "a city in decline, heading for a crisis." Just one in ten high school graduates returns to take up residence in Upper Nazareth. The percentage of elderly people in the city (18 percent) is among the highest in the country. Nearly half (48 percent) of residents here are immigrants. The number of single mothers is astronomical -- 10 percent. The municipality's welfare department needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. "Government ministers come to the Galilee conference once a year," Gadalkin said. "There's applause, food and refreshments, and that's it." "Ben-Gurion's vision of a Hebrew city that absorbs immigrants is instead turning into a mixed city," he said. "We are living in a situation of coexistence and nobody can accuse us of racism, but the daily reality of being a Jewish minority is not easy. Seventy percent of criminal activity is perpetrated by minorities. When there are demonstrations in Kafr Kana, the city is sealed off. The quality of life here includes gunshots at weddings, a muezzin calling people to prayer at 5 a.m., music on Holocaust Remembrance Day and on Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers. "We have an Arab village, Al-Maher, that is located inside the municipal boundaries and which separates two neighborhoods. The Givat Barak neighborhood, which was built for noncommissioned officers, is today an area where 80 percent of the residents are Arabs. Minorities also place a greater burden on the education and welfare infrastructures. Older people are moving here, and when they move into an assisted living facility, I have to subsidize a quarter of the cost. "I know this doesn't sound so good in Tel Aviv-speak. But in Tel Aviv there is no intermingling of the populations like there is here, and they don't need to deal with challenges that we face here. Every Arab moves into our town in place of a Jew. We know the facts and figures released by the Shin Bet and the police. There is involvement in terrorist activity. There are sleeper cells here. The nationalist sentiment begins to bubble to the surface when the state is no longer making itself present. "The question is to be or not to be. We could throw up our hands in despair. We could declare that the State of Israel's borders end at Gedera. We could decide to cede the Galilee. I really hope that this is not the case. I really believe that this is like Maccabi [Tel Aviv]. Against all odds, defying the laws of nature, they won."
