Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli parliament, has been stirring up trouble. In August, he charged Israel with having failed in its historic mission to be a "light unto nations" through its belligerence. He was promptly accused of encouraging "the Jew hatred sweeping all of Europe."
A few weeks ago, Burg was at it again, articulating the nightmare all Israelis fear: "Between the Jordan [River] and the Mediterranean, somewhere between next year and two years' time, there will be born the first Palestinian ... of the Palestinian majority," -- the generation of Arabs who will outnumber Israelis.
Now figures released last week show that immigration -- to a country beset by violence and a faltering economy -- has collapsed to its lowest level in 15 years, dramatically cutting the population growth.
The figures show the Achilles heel of the security policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud-led government. In three years, immigration has fallen by 50 percent, a stark contrast to Sharon's avowed aim to attract a million immigrants in the next decade.
According to Israel's state statistics office, the population is now 6.75 million -- 81 percent Jewish and "other nationalities" and 19 percent Arab.
Crucially, however, the figures show that despite financial incentives for couples who have more children, the population rose last year by 116,000, or 1.7 percent -- its lowest increase since 1990.
In the 1990s, annual immigration ranged from 70,000 to 200,000 as around a million Jews from the former Soviet Union -- many of them more loosely defined as Jewish than some religious authorities would prefer -- flocked to Israel.
At the heart of all this is simple mathematics. Forecasts from the US Population Reference Bureau show Israel's population doubling in 45 years, that of the West Bank in 21 years and that of Gaza in 15 years. In other words, Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and Israeli Arabs will outnumber the Jewish population by 2020.
This has led commentators such as David Landau, editor of the English-language edition of the newspaper Ha'aretz, to warn of a "cataclysmic" demographic challenge.
Landau told a symposium in San Francisco that he feared Palestinians would abandon calls for a two-state solution and insist on equal voting rights within a wider Israel -- which would end the Zionist dream.
The growing sense of panic among Israelis over the demographic time bomb underscores the bitter divisions that are emerging in Israeli society.
Of all the cases for the future of Israel and the occupied territories, the argument of the hardliners that Jews should govern the entire "historic" land of Israel is the one that would bring the moment of crisis closest. An alternative would be a policy of expulsion or transfer of population that even many hardliners who advocate it realize would make Israel an international pariah.
This same logic would undermine any attempt to remain in the occupied territories. For without expulsion Israel is faced with the choice of delivering political rights to the burgeoning population or practicing a form of political apartheid.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and