Summary
Northern district (Galilee) commissioner whose secret report to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on handling the Arabs in Israel, leaked in 1976, The Question of Palestine presents as the most unguarded example of government for Arabs in Israel.
Details
- Koenig was the northern district (Galilee) commissioner of the ministry; his secret report, written for then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on “handling the Arabs in Israel”, was subsequently leaked in full to Al-Hamishmar on September 7, 1976 (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.128-129 / printed p.107-108).
- In the report, as Said presents it, Koenig treats the Arabs as a demographic problem (an annual increase of 5.9 percent against the Jews’ 1.5 percent), proposes expanding and deepening Jewish settlement where Arab population contiguity is prominent and examining diluting existing Arab concentrations, and proposes replacing troublesome Arab leaders and creating acceptable new Arab figures (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.129 / printed p.108).
- His university proposals — equal reception criteria meticulously implemented to produce a natural selection reducing Arab students, channeling into technical and scientific professions, easier study abroad with harder return — are quoted by Said at PDF p.130-131 / printed p.109-110.
- Said places Koenig at the end of a line from Weizmann: what was visionary projection for Weizmann became for Koenig a context of actual law, and nothing in the report conflicts with Zionism’s dichotomy of benevolence toward Jews and paternalistic hostility toward Arabs (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.131-132 / printed p.110-111).
Related pages
The Question of Palestine, Koenig Report, Judaization, Chaim Weizmann