-Caveat Lector- From http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=90190 }}>Begin 23 August 2001 05:42 GMT+1 Home > News > World > Middle East Israel welcomes Russian footsoldiers in its demographic war By Phil Reeves 23 August 2001 Clutching a single red rose and a small plastic Star of David flag, Polina Ferman, a 16-year-old Russian, stood on the sweltering airport tarmac yesterday and spelt our her ambitions as a new citizen of Israel. "I want a career, lots of money, a house, a husband, children and a Swiss bank account," she said with the business-like air of someone scanning a grocery list. A job in the computer business would be nice. Around her stood some 250 young people � all in their late teens and from Russia or the Ukraine � with whom she had just disembarked. They arrived at Ben Gurion airport as the sun slumped down towards the smog-draped horizon of nearby Tel Aviv. By sunset an hour later � after the welcoming speeches, the flag-waving and the paperwork � they had become Israelis. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union continue to flow into Israel, undeterred by Palestinian suicide bombers and drive-by assassins, or by the cruelty their adopted nation is using in its efforts to suppress the intifa da. This week is a record for the year so far: 1,225 immigrants will fly in, many of them � like yesterday's arrivals � young people brought in under a youth programme organised by the Jewish Agency as the latest injection in to the bloodstream of the 53-year-old Jewish state. By the end of this year, some 45,000 immigrants are expected, of whom four out of five will be from the former USSR. The rate is significantly lower than it was during the 1990s � a decade which saw 900,000 Soviets flood to Israel during the aftermath of the USSR's collapse. But that was before the current war began. Since the start of the intifada 11 months ago, plenty of blood has been shed by Israel's ex-Soviet citizens. Almost all of the 22 people killed by the Tel Aviv bomb in June were Russian-speaking immigrants. They have feat ured on the list of victims of drive-by shootings of soldiers and settlers by Palestinian guerrilla groups. The violence is getting worse � six Palestinians were killed yesterday by the Israeli army, and on Tuesday there was another, happily thwarted, attempt to massacre Israelis in Jerusalem with a car bomb. Yet the "Russians" just keep on coming. Yesterday was perhaps not the occasion to raise the inconvenient question of the war, or the way it is being waged. The youngsters shrugged it off, at least outwardly. Some � the Russians among them � pointed out that the picture is far worse in Chechnya, neglecting to add that for most of them that conflict is thousands of miles away from home. Some insisted that they are undeterred by the prospect of serving as soldiers of their new nation, for which they already expressed strong patriotic attachment. Polina Ferman, the daughter of a financial consultant from Kursk, fell into the latter camp. She "didn't mind" living with Arabs so long as they recognised that they were all foreigners � including the West Bankers and Ga zans � living on Jewish land. And if she was swept up in the violence? That was a matter for God. "If I must die, I will die." But their faces were revealing. During their welcoming ceremony, rousing Hebrew nationalist songs blared out of the loudspeakers. Roses and flags were handed out. But the youngsters appeared subdued, some scowling, some a pplauding half-heartedly. All the young men knew that � after the Hebrew courses and English lessons � they will have to serve in the army. The Jews among Israel's Russian immigrants see themselves as exercising an historic right to return to live in their homeland, escaping the anti-Semitism that plagues eastern Europe and Russia. But this is far from the co mplete picture. At least half of this year's new arrivals are not Jewish under rabbinical law; a significant number have little meaningful cultural or religious connection to � or any knowledge of � Judaism, the Jewish people or Israel. They are economic migrants, Slavs arriving in search of a more prosperous life � of the jobs, income and welfare that their benighted, deeply corrupt, autocratic former Soviet republics have long ceased to provide. Israel is happy to have them. It knows it needs foot soldiers for its eternal demographic war against the Arabs within Israel � who form a sixth of its population of 6.4m � and against the Palestinians imprisoned in the occupied territories and the refugee camps of neighbouring countries. Demographers predict that within 20 years, Jews will form a minority west of the River Jordan; Israel is eagerly packing them in, without being too fussy about their credentials. But for the Palestinians, the Russian wave of immigration is yet another addition to their ledger of historic grievances against their Israeli occupiers and another reason to go on fighting. The Palestinians demand the right to return to the lands from which they were driven during the war that erupted with the creation of Israel in 1948, but they know that Israel will never allow it. They watch with deep bitterness as the Israelis annually admit tens of thousands of Russians under the so-called Law of Return, which merely requires that new immigrants need have only one Jewish grandparent. Many of these are � as Palestinians repeatedly point out � no more Jewish than they are. 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