The Demon of Demography

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bspoke of “the worrisome forecast that sees Acre possibly losing bits Jewish character and returning to being a city with a definite bArab population. This forecast is based not only on statistics bthat clearly show a trend among Acre Jewish families to leave bthe city, along with a reverse trend on the part of Arab families bin the region to move there. It is also apparent from the declara- btions of various Arab personalities in the city who speak of the b‘Arabization of Acre.’”

bThe Galilee. Where the Jews build a small outpost, Tel El— b53 Jews in the midst of 40,000 Arabs. Where Dr. Amnon Sofer bof Haifa University tells of the Arab village of Sakhnin which has bgrown to 12,000 people, adding 500 new ones every year. “To bkeep up with that it is necessary to establish two moshavim b[“Jewish settlements”] a year in that area,” says Dr. Sofer.

bBut that is not happening, and Israel faces the real truth of bArab demography. Of course, the ultimate threat is that of the bArabs quietly achieving national majority, which will allow bthem to take control of the Knesset and legally abolish the Jew- bish state. The population figures are all in their favor.

bIn 1976 the U.S. Library of Congress, in a study of the bArab-Jewish population, predicted that even if Israel were to bgive up all the liberated lands, the Arabs within the State of bIsrael would become a majority in 100 years. That was based on an bannual net immigration of 25,000. Israel is nowhere near such a bthing, and with economic chaos already in the land, great efforts bwill be needed to keep the number of emigrants from exceeding bthe number of new arrivals. Seventy years is a much more prac- btical figure for that Arab majority. Why should the Arab grow bmore moderate? In the face of the figures that show him moving btoward becoming a huge minority and eventually a majority, bwhy should he voluntarily throw away his opportunity to rule brather than be ruled or even to share rule? What are 70 years or b80 or 100 to the Arab? If Jews could dream of the return to Zion band a sovereign Jewish state for 1,900 years, why do we think bthat the Arab cannot dream and hope and work toward his re- bturn for a century? Why do we think that, in his own way, the bArab cannot be his own “Zionist”? In the past, among all the bZionist leaders who deluded the people and themselves, one bman, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, came closest to understanding. But not bclose enough.

bIn his classic essay “An Iron Wall,” he wrote: “. . .there is b