bA similar warning was given by Knesset member Amnon Linn
bon December 9, 1975, when he charged that elements among the
bIsraeli Arabs planned to revolt and demand annexation of areas
bof Israel to any new Palestinian state.
bOf course, Israel will not agree, and bloody will be the bat-
btles and terrible the bombs and bullets. Rebellion will raise its
bhead in the midst of Israel, and the nightly television news will
bshow pictures of Israeli soldiers shooting Arabs in the Galilee. It
bwill be dangerous to travel through the area, let alone live there,
band all the while the Arab population growth will mean more
bArab legislators in the Knesset and another step toward a “dem-
bocratically” created “Palestine.”
bToo late, the Israeli government realizes the danger and
bfrantically attempts to prevent the Arabization of the Galilee by
b“Judaizing” it, filling it with Jews to offset Arab population
bgrowth. Of course, even at this late critical stage of national
bemergency, there are Jews whose liberal instinct clashes with
btheir Jewishness and their sense of national self-preservation.
bAnd so President Yitzhak Navon absurdly tells Galilee settlers
bthat the term “Jewish settlement” is preferable to “Judaizing,”
blest the latter be seen as either racist or implying driving the
bArabs out. But whether one calls the child by its real name,
b“Judaizing,” or plays games of self-deception and conjures up
b“Jewish settlement” or even the innocuous “development of the
bGalilee,” the fact remains that the Israelis are desperately at-
btempting to raise the Jewish population in the area that is the
bfocus of Arab nationalism and irredentism. It is a policy that is
bfar too little and far too late.
bWhen Moshe Rivlin, head of the Israeli Jewish National Fund
band a longtime Labor Party official, cries: “If we fail, G-d for-
bbid, to . . . change the Jewish-Arab population ratio in the
bGalilee to a minimum of fifty-fifty, Israel will soon face a grave
bdanger,” one can understand his fears. But in reality, the danger
bof the Arabs does not end even if we can somehow manage to
bkeep a precarious equality of population in the Galilee. The fact
bthat the Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland are a minority in
bno way prevents them from demanding annexation to Eire, the
bIrish Republic. A huge, growing, hostile Arab population of 40
bto 50 percent is enough to turn the Galilee into a perpetual
bbloody scene of confrontation. Furthermore, there is no possible
b