-- encouraged massive Jewish immigration and blocked right of return; key was passage of the 1950 Law of Return that gives anyone of Jewish ancestry the right to Israeli citizenship; three million Jews took advantage, including one million after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990;
-- incentivizing Jewish birth rates by financial and other means while denying similar benefits to Israeli Arabs.
At the time, Gen-Gurion set an upper Arab population limit of 15%. Despite a birth rate twice that of Israel, the level wasn't exceeded thereafter and is barely above it now. It was 13.6% in 1949, 12.5% in 1970, about 16% today, and a key topic at the first Institute of Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Centre conference in Herzliya in 2000. It shaped Sharon's thinking, helped him formulate disengagement ideas, and spotlighted Israel's "demographic threat."
The conference report stated: "The increase in the demographic share of the Arab minority in Israel tests directly Israel's future as a Jewish-Zionist-democratic state." A range of solutions were proposed to maintain a Jewish majority, including:
-- policies to encourage a higher Jewish birth rate;
-- "encourag(ing) Israeli Arabs to transfer their citizenship to a Palestinian state;" and
-- moving the densely populated "Little Triangle" Arab heartland to Palestinian Authority (PA) control as part of a land swap deal; the idea was to transfer small West Bank settlements to Israel in return and have a similar arrangement for Arab East Jerusalem.
Post-2000, "transfer" caught on as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing and was popularized in the mainstream, the media, academia, and in the Israeli Knesset. It was no longer taboo in public to express former Military Intelligence chief Shlomo Gaziti's view that "Democracy has to be subordinated to demography."
More extreme notions were also heard from extremists like former general, Sharon Tourism Minister, and outspoken racist, Rehava'am Ze'evi. He advocated "transfer(ing)" Palestinians to other Arab states and remove them by state-imposed policies of economic hardship, unemployment and restrictions of land, water and other essential services. Two other times he was more extreme. In a 2001 radio interview, he referred to Palestinians as a "cancer (and) We should get rid of the ones who are not Israeli citizens the same way you get rid of lice, but he topped that one in 1990 after Saddam invaded Kuwait. Then he advocated expulsion to Jordan where they could be human shields if Iraq attacked Israel.
He wasn't alone in his views, and earlier, closely related ones were around and a policy called "Judaisation." Under it, state-sponsored Jewish settlements populated Arab heartlands in the Galilee and Negev, expropriated Palestinian land, and displaced its inhabitants incrementally. Polls during the second Intifada showed most Israelis approve, and that helped legitimize the development of "uncompromising policies to tackle the 'demographic threat.' "
An early scheme was to discriminate in child allowances by cutting them 20% for parents who hadn't served in the army. It targeted Arab families because few among them perform military service. Other benefits were also cut: tax credits, employment opportunities, mortgage relief, housing grants and more with a simple idea in mind - economic warfare to reduce the Arab birth rate. At the same time, the defunct Demography Council was reestablished to devise ways to raise it for Jews and discourage abortions.
More went on as well. In May 2002, the Interior Ministry imposed an administrative freeze to effectively ban newly married mixed-couples from living together inside Israel. In July 2003, the Knesset made this part of the Nationality Law. It placed established couples in legal limbo and prevented Palestinian spouses from upgrading their temporary residency status. It got worse in mid-2005 when the Knesset prohibited Israeli citizens from bringing Palestinian spouses into Israel, except under rarely granted circumstances.
The move had a clear purpose - to harden "ethnic consolidation" and treat Arabs the way the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) described it: an intolerantly "endemic, systematic and pervasive bias against non-Jews....trampling on their legal rights."
Israel's Polulation Registry of the Interior Ministry was empowered to do it through the Nationality Law to "put a legal gloss on existing racist practices" against Arabs. In addition, a definitive immigration policy was devised to impose strict conditions on naturalizing non-Jews to ensure a "solid Jewish majority...."
Amnon Rubinstein got the task as a well-credentialed law professor, Israel's foremost constitutional expert, and a cheerleader for the hawkish right. He publicly supported the amended Nationality Law and believed in the guiding principle that "the key for entering the Israeli home (should be) held by the Jews."
Israeli professor Yoav Peled called the new law a watershed, viewed it with alarm, and believed it's "a very dangerous turning point" in the country. Previously, Israeli laws disguised discrimination. No longer. Henceforth, according to Peled: "Palestinian citizens who are (moved) will not be transfered to another state - a Palestinian state where they can realise their rights - because there will be no other state. Their citizenship will not be transferred; it will be revoked."
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
