Apartheid

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778 in 1998 alone. 330 These are or were original and indigenous Jerusalemites, as opposed to
the people now replacing them, and in many cases receiving their land and houses.
The difference in population growth could in fact be considered one of the chief
causes behind widespread Israeli trigger-happiness and paranoia in general. In Jerusalem,
population growth among Arabs is three times that of Jews, and the projections of a Jewish
demographic study, released two days before the outbreak of the Second Intifada, are that
Arabs will increase from 30 per cent to 40 per cent of Jerusalem’s population by 2020. 331
Having projected a two-third Arab majority in all of Historic Palestine by the year
2045, the same Faisal Husseini remarked more generally on December 5, 2000, that: ‘In 2045,
Israelis would probably have to elect a Palestinian Nelson Mandela as their Prime Minister
since Palestinians would make up the majority of the population in the Jewish state.’ 332 This
projection does not even include or provide for the majority of Palestinians who are still
refugees outside of Historic Palestine. Only massive genocide may yet help Israeli Jews keep
their demographic dominance, but even with its closest allies controlling most of the global
mass media as well as the United Nations, Israel is unlikely to be able to resort to this option
unnoticed or unpunished.
Instead, the Israeli government pursues active repopulation policies as aggressively as
it can, exacerbating tension, causing deaths and human tragedies on a small scale only as
compared to full-blown genocide, yet somehow perhaps aware that it is fighting a losing
battle, similar to that of apartheid South Africa’s Whites during the 20 th century. According to
the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics some 13,000 more Jewish settlers moved into the
Palestinian territories in the first nine months of 2000, the period leading up to the Second
Intifada. In sum, there were now around 350,000 Jewish settlers in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories. The Israeli pressure group ‘Peace Now’ commented with dismay that the number
of settlement buildings in the Palestinian territories had shot up 50 percent since Israel and the
Palestinians signed the 1993 Oslo agreement on Palestinian ‘autonomy’, to be implemented in
precisely those areas. To any objective observer, it was obvious that Israel was not at all
interested in giving back the areas that had been promised to the Palestinians and that was
demanded by international law. On the contrary, Israel was systematically stealing more land.
In a report highly critical of the Israeli government, the group said settlers built some 32,750
housing units in the Palestinian territories from September 1993 through July 2000. 333
Another unique manifestation of Israeli racism is the blatant and
sinister policy of ‘demographic engineering.’ To maintain the ‘Jewish
character,’ or the ‘purity’ of the state of Israel, the Palestinians have
been depicted and dealt with as a ‘demographic threat.’ Proposed
‘remedies’ included calls for forced birth control and ‘population
management,’ to ‘transfer’ and expulsion of whole communities, to
the racist and punitive unilateral ‘separation’ scheme currently being
advocated.
In Jerusalem, land expropriation, ID confiscations, home demolitions,
withholding of building permits, and the importation of settler
330 Amr, W.: Census Shows 330,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem, 2000; Amr, W.: Census Shows More Palestinians
in East Jerusalem, 2000. Husseini emphasized this issue again at a speech in Vienna on November 29, 2000, in
which he projected a demographic 50-50 relationship between Israeli Jews and Arabs by the year 2010 and a
two-thirds Arab majority in Historic Palestine by 2045. For Jerusalem, see further Hauser: Jerusalem is
Explosive Issue at U.S. Peace Summit, 2000. As the 1999 census was published, Husseini said the Israeli
confiscations of residency permits had gone down slightly in 1999. See Amr, W. December 20, 2000.
331 N.N.: Arab Population Growth Outpaces Jews in Jerusalem, September 26, 2000
332 Amayreh: Faisal Husseini: Israel Will Disappear If It Continues to Ignore Palestinian Rights, 2000.
Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, around 19 per cent of the Israeli population also exhibit a ‘much higher birth
rate’ than Jewish citizens. See N.N.: Sharon Accuses Palestinian Govt of Murder, Lies, February 24, 2004.
333 N.N.: 13,000 More Jewish Settlers Arrived in Palestinian Territories in 2000, December 11, 2000