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Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu caused a political storm when he stated that Israel's demographic problem was with its Israeli Arab population.
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| By Ellis Shuman December 18, 2003 |
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Left-wing Knesset members sharply criticized Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's address at the Herzliya Conference yesterday, where he stated that Israel's demographic problem was not with the Palestinians, but rather with its increasing numbers of Israeli Arabs. MK Ahmad Tibi (Hadash) said in response, "The day is not far off when Netanyahu... will put up roadblocks at the entrance to Arab villages... and spray us with spermicide."
Netanyahu's speech, his first diplomatic address since becoming finance minister, attacked Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's call for a withdrawal from most of the territories due to the concern that Israel could not remain a Jewish democratic state if it didn't ensure a 80% Jewish majority. "For a diplomatic deal you need a partner and you need to get something back in return," Netanyahu said, rejecting any possibility of unilateral moves.
"We do have a demographic problem but it is with the Arab Israelis, not the Palestinians," Netanyahu said. "The declaration of independence depicts Israel as both Jewish and democratic. To stop democracy from wiping out the Jewish nature of the country we must insure the Jewish majority. Incorporating the Arab Israelis fully into Israeli society should be done hand in hand with protecting the Jewish nature of that society," he said.
"Luckily we no longer control the larger part of the Palestinian population. I do not see any possible solution that will somehow bring these people back under Israeli rule, as citizens or in any other form. We are not interested in controlling the Palestinians," Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu warned that if the Arab minority would reach 40% of the population, Israel would cease to exist as a Jewish democratic state. Of Israel's 6.6 million citizens, about 1.3 million (20%) are Arabs, Haaretz reported.
"Soon he will spray us with spermicide"
"Describing 20% of a country's population as a demographic problem based on their religion is racism, not only in developed countries but in totalitarian regimes as well," said MK Azmi Bishara (Balad) in response.
"The day is not far off when Netanyahu and his cohorts will put up roadblocks at the entrances to Arab villages to tie Arab women's tubes and spray us with spermicide," charged MK Ahmad Tibi (Hadash).
MK Talab a-Sana (United Arab List) asked: "How would Netanyahu react if someone in the West or the U.S. said that the reproduction rate of the Haredi Jews was a demographic problem? Netanyahu has double standards."
Some of the Arab politicians said they planned to file a complaint with Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein and Tibi demanded that Netanyahu apologize for his remarks.
Criticism came from Jewish politicians as well. MK Dalia Itzik (Labor) called Netanyahu a "serial pyromaniac" who previously set off the social inferno between rich and poor, and is now "trying to ignite the national conflagration between Jews and Arabs."
MK Yossi Sarid (Meretz) said it was amazing to see "great leaders exposed as small bigots. The Palestinian problem in the territories has not yet been solved, and already some insist on creating a new problem with Israeli Arabs? Netanyahu at Herzliya poured a fuel tanker on the bonfire of relations between Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel, and a thousand firemen won't be able to put out a fire that one light-hearted man ignited," Sarid said.
"Netanyahu distorted the facts"
Experts in demographics charged that Netanyahu had intentionally distorted facts when he stated that Israel's demographic problem was with its Arab minority, ynet reported.
"Netanyahu was searching for something to say that others hadn't already said," charged Prof. Dov Friedlander, a demography expert at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "People spoke of the demography problem already back in the 1960s, and since then it's been balanced and stable," he said.
Friedlander and other experts said that the forecasts on which Netanyahu based his speech were exaggerated, and that Israel's balance of 80% Jews vs. 20% Arabs was likely to continue in the future. According to a forecast prepared by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Jews and non-Arabs will outnumber Arabs in the State of Israel by 77.2% to 22.8% in the year 2020.
"I'm not speaking about the ideological angle, which was deluxe fascism," Friedlander said. "Israeli Arabs are Israeli citizens, and you just can't talk about them like this, even if you fear something."
Involvement in terror activities
Meanwhile, Minister without portfolio Gideon Ezra (Likud) said yesterday that 173 Israeli Arabs had been arrested over the last three years on suspicion of involvement in terror attacks. Twelve Israeli Arabs perpetrated attacks and 21 Israeli Arabs assisted terrorists by transporting suicide bombers. Israeli Arabs were involved in attacks that claimed the lives of 135 Israelis, Ezra said.
But according to statistics prepared by the Shin Bet security service, there has been a sharp drop in the involvement of Israeli Arabs in terrorist activity in 2003, Haaretz reported today.
"In 2003, there was an even more precipitous drop, of two-thirds, in the number of attacks involving Israeli Arab citizens," the paper reported. "However, in the four attacks this year in which Israeli Arab citizens were involved, 45 people were killed, matching the number killed in the 12 attacks in which Israeli Arabs were involved in 2002," Haaretz added.
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