By David K. Shipler
On some
unknown day in some recent year, according to the most reliable estimates, the
demographic scales were tipped by the death of an Israeli Jew or the birth of an
Arab baby. The Jews lost their majority in the ancient, weary land between the
Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as the number of Arabs reached parity
with the Jewish population, at 6.1 or 6.2 million each, depending on who’s
counting. Every Israeli knew that the day was coming, but few noticed its
stealthy arrival under the camouflage of their twilight war with the
Palestinian Arabs, which has blurred visions of the future.
Now what is
to be done? That is the profound question for Israel, one that Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu seems ill-equipped to address, despite his many years in
office. It is the question that will lurk behind his speech to Congress on Iran’s
nuclear ambitions, because the answer—whatever it may be—is equally critical to
Israel’s survival as a democratic sanctuary.
Will
Israeli Jews, as a minority going forward, continue to dominate the Arab majority?
Will the current hybrid of military occupation and hostile disengagement
continue endlessly, or will an exit be found? Will that exit create two states
side by side, and will they exist in accommodation or ongoing violence? Or will
the “solution” be one state? And if so, what would that state look like with an
Arab majority and a Jewish minority? Would all Arabs, including those from the
West Bank and Gaza, enjoy equal citizenship in a full democracy, as Arab
citizens of Israel technically do now? If so, they will outvote the Jews, and
the character of Israel as a Jewish state will be lost. If not—if Arabs are
consigned to a lesser status of limited rights—will the uneven relationship
justify the hateful a-word, “apartheid,” already thrown about loosely by
anti-Israel zealots?
