Summary
In Stateless Citizenship (2013) Chapter 4, “the pathological fear of and concern around non-Jewish (i.e. Palestinian-Arab) births” that shapes Israeli public debate and planning, a cornerstone of the Zionist project alongside control over land (PDF p.158-159).
Details
- Its institutional record in this part includes Ben-Gurion’s 1940s ‘demographic duty’ (Shalev and Gooldin 2006, 166), the post-1967 Center for Demography, the December 2000 Herzliya conference report’s choice between “adaptation or containment” of Arab birthrates, and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs’ 2010 Jerusalem master-plan report projecting the preferred 70/30 Jewish-Arab divide adjusted to 60/40 by 2020 (PDF p.159-161).
- Arnon Soffer, in footnote 17, is quoted designing the West Bank wall by demography: “90 percent I took in my consideration demography, two or three percent holy sites and maybe seven or eight percent only security” (Al Jazeera English, November 27, 2007, as quoted, PDF p.159).
- Molavi argues Alexander Yakobson and Amnon Rubinstein share this racialized demographobia while adding a liberal seal of approval, and that their argument is circular: a Jewish majority is needed for a Jewish state, and a Jewish state is needed because the Jewish majority wants it (2009, 25, 71, as quoted, PDF p.162-164).
Related pages
Stateless Citizenship (2013), Judaization, Demographic problem