|
bSome years ago I was arrested by the Israeli police and bcharged with “incitement to revolution.” The grounds? I had breached the conclusion that it was impossible to find a solution bfor the Arab-Jewish confrontation in the Land of Israel (both the bState of Israel and the lands liberated in 1967); that the Jewish bstate was inevitably headed toward a situation like that in bNorthern Ireland; that the only possible way to avoid or to bmitigate it was the emigration of Arabs. Consequently, I had bsent letters to several thousand Arabs offering them an op- bportunity (funds and visas) to emigrate voluntarily. The fact bthat many Arabs replied positively and that a major Arab vil- blage in the Galilee, Gush Halev, offered to move all its inhabit- bants to Canada in return for a village there did not prevent the bworried Israeli government from arresting me. bFour long years and one important war later, a scandal bbroke in Israel. It was revealed that Yisrael Koenig, a high of- bficial in the Ministry of the Interior who is in charge of the bnorthern region of Israel, had drafted a secret memorandum in bwhich he warned of the increasing danger of Arab growth b(which would make Arabs in the Galilee a majority by 1978) as bwell as of increasing Arab national militancy. His solution in- bcluded several measures that he hoped would lead to Arab emi- bgration. bThe pity is that vital years have passed since my original bproposal, wasted years that saw the Yom Kippur War produce ba major psychological change in Arab thinking. In the aftermath bof that war and its political consequences, vast numbers of Ar- babs, who in 1972 were depressed and convinced that Israeli sov- bereignty could not be destroyed, are today just as convinced that btime is on their side, that it will not be long before the Zionist bstate collapses. Then they—the Arabs—will hold sway over all bthat will be “Palestine.” The necessary corollary is, of course, bthat hundreds of thousands who were potential voluntary émi- bgrés nine years ago are now determined to stay and await bthe day of Arab victory. But they must go. bIt is in order to convince the Jew of this that I have written bthis book. bThe problem with so many people who proclaim the virtues bof coexistence between the Jewish majority of the Jewish state band its Arab minority is that they hold the Arab, as well as his b
|
|