{"id":172156,"date":"2020-11-09T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=172156"},"modified":"2024-06-12T21:24:56","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T20:24:56","slug":"escalating-the-demographic-war-the-strategic-goal-of-israeli-racism-in-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/11\/escalating-the-demographic-war-the-strategic-goal-of-israeli-racism-in-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"Escalating the Demographic War: The Strategic Goal of Israeli Racism in Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Racist graffiti on the walls of a Palestinian property in the West Bank.
(Photo: via Social Media)<\/p><\/div>\n

4 Nov 2020 – <\/em>The discussion on institutional Israeli racism against its own Palestinian Arab population has all but ceased following the final approval <\/a>of the discriminatory Nation-State Law in July 2018. Indeed, the latest addition to Israel\u2019s Basic Law is a mere start of a new government-espoused agenda that is designed to further marginalize over a fifth of Israel\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, October 28, eighteen members of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) conjured up yet another ploy to target Israeli Arab citizens. They proposed<\/a> a bill that would revoke Israeli citizenship for any Palestinian Arab prisoner in Israel who, directly or indirectly, receives any financial aid from the Palestinian Authority (PA).<\/p>\n

Worthy of mention is that these MKs not only represent right-wing, ultra-right and religious parties, but also the Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) \u2018centrist\u2019 party. Namely, the proposed bill already has the support of Israel\u2019s parliamentary majority.<\/p>\n

But is this really about financial aid for prisoners? Particularly since the PA is nearly bankrupt, and its financial contributions to the families of Palestinian prisoners, even within the Occupied Territories \u2013 West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza \u2013 is symbolic?<\/p>\n

Here is an alternative context. On Thursday, October 29, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, revealed <\/a>that the Israeli government of right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, plans to expand the jurisdiction of the Jewish town of Harish in northern Israel by 50 percent. The aim is to prevent Palestinians from becoming the majority in that area.<\/p>\n

The contingency plan was formulated by Israel\u2019s Housing Ministry as a swift response to an internal document, which projects that, by the year 2050, Palestinian Arabs will constitute 51 percent of that region\u2019s population of 700,000 residents.<\/p>\n

These are just two examples of recent actions taken within two days, damning evidence that, indeed, the Nation-State law was the mere preface of a long period of institutional racism, which ultimately aims at winning a one-sided demographic war<\/a> that was launched by Israel against the Palestinian people many years ago.<\/p>\n

Since outright ethnic cleansing \u2013 which Israel practiced during and after the wars of 1948 and 1967 \u2013 is not an option, at least not for now, Israel is finding other ways to ensure a Jewish majority in Israel itself, in Jerusalem, in Area C within the occupied West Bank and, by extension, everywhere else in Palestine.<\/p>\n

Israeli dissident historian, Professor Ilan Pappe, refers<\/a> to this as \u2018incremental genocide\u2019. This slow-paced ethnic cleansing includes the expansion of the illegal Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the proposed annexation<\/a> of nearly a third of the Occupied Territories.<\/p>\n

The besieged Gaza Strip is a different story. Winning a demographic war in a densely populated but small region of two million inhabitants living within 365 sq. km, was never feasible. The so-called \u2018redeployment<\/a>\u2019 out of Gaza by late Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, in 2005 was a strategic decision, which aimed at cutting Israel\u2019s losses in Gaza in favor of expediting the colonization process in the West Bank and the Naqab Desert. Indeed, most of Gaza\u2019s illegal Jewish settlers were eventually relocated to these demographically-contested regions.<\/p>\n

But how is Israel to deal with its own Palestinian Arab population, which now constitutes a sizeable demographic minority and an influential, often united, political bloc?<\/p>\n

In the Israeli general elections of March 2020, united Arab Palestinian political parties contesting under the umbrella group, The Joint List, achieved<\/a> their greatest electoral success yet, as they emerged as Israel\u2019s third-largest political party. This success rang alarm bells among Israel\u2019s Jewish ruling elites, leading to the formation<\/a> of Israel\u2019s current \u2018unity government\u2019. Israel\u2019s two major political parties, Likud and Kahol Lavan, made it clear that no Arab parties would be included in any government coalition.<\/p>\n

A strong Arab political constituency represents a nightmare scenario for Israel\u2019s government planners, who are obsessed with demographics and the marginalization of Palestinian Arabs in every possible arena. Hence, the very representatives of the Palestinian Arab community in Israel become a target for political repression.<\/p>\n

In a report published in September 2019, the rights group, Amnesty International, revealed<\/a> that \u201cPalestinian members of the Knesset in Israel are increasingly facing discriminatory attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite being democratically elected like their Jewish Israeli counterparts, Palestinian MKs are the target of deep-rooted discrimination and undue restrictions that hamstring their ability to speak out in defense of the rights of the Palestinian people,\u201d Amnesty stated.<\/p>\n

These revelations were communicated by Amnesty just prior to the September 27 elections. The targeting of Palestinian citizens of Israel is reminiscent of similar harassment and targeting of Palestinian officials and parties in the Occupied Territories, especially prior to local or general elections. Namely, Israel views its own Palestinian Arab population through the same prism that it views its militarily occupied Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Since its establishment on the ruins of historic Palestine, and until 1979, Israel governed its Palestinian population through the Defense (Emergency) Regulations<\/a>. The arbitrary legal system imposed numerous restrictions on those Palestinians who were allowed to remain in Israel following the 1948 Nakba, or ethnic cleansing of Palestine.<\/p>\n

In practice, however, the emergency rule was lifted in name only. It was merely redefined, and replaced \u2013 according to the Israel-based Adalah rights group \u2013 by over 65 laws that directly target<\/a> the Palestinian Arab minority of Israel. The Nation-State Law, which denies Israel\u2019s Arab minority their legal status, therefore, protection under international law, further accentuates Israel\u2019s relentless war on its Arab minority.<\/p>\n

Moreover, \u201cthe definition of Israel as \u2018the Jewish State\u2019 or \u2018the State of the Jewish People\u2019 makes inequality a practical, political and ideological reality for Palestinian citizens of Israel,\u201d according to Adalah.<\/p>\n

Israeli racism is not random and cannot be simply classified as yet another human rights violation. It is the core of a sophisticated plan that aims at the political marginalization and economic strangulation of Israel\u2019s Palestinian Arab minority within a constitutional, thus \u2018legal\u2019, framework.<\/p>\n

Without fully appreciating the end goal of this Israeli strategy, Palestinians and their allies will not have the chance to properly combat it, as they certainly should.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of <\/em>The Palestine Chronicle. His last book is <\/em>The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is <\/em>These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is <\/em>www.ramzybaroud.net<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ramzybaroud.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4 Nov 2020 – Israeli racism is the core of a sophisticated plan that aims at the political marginalization and economic strangulation of Israel\u2019s Palestinian Arab minority within a constitutional, thus \u2018legal\u2019, framework.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":112039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[120,1829,1030,87,267,1029,487,2395,88,771,1027,427,85,109,287,1572,985,880,292,70,126,1025,886],"class_list":["post-172156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-conflict","tag-coronavirus","tag-fatah","tag-gaza","tag-geopolitics","tag-hamas","tag-human-rights","tag-international-criminal-court-icc","tag-israel","tag-nakba","tag-oslo-accords","tag-palestine","tag-palestine-israel","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-settlers","tag-social-justice","tag-state-terrorism","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-west-bank","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264233,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172156\/revisions\/264233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}