Demographic Threat - Israel

Israel

In the 1950s Shoham Melamad found that the high fertility rate of Arabs was viewed as a demographic threat to the Jewish nation. A 1967 Maariv editorial suggested that Jews should be encouraged to have large families, while Palestinians in the West Bank & Gaza Srip and in Israel should be encouraged to adopt birth control measures. Schnitzer also advocated for the adoption of an open policy encouraging Arabs to emigrate overseas. In 2003 Benjamin Netanyahu opined that if the percentage of Arab citizens of Israel rises above its current level of about 20 percent, Israel would not be able to retain a Jewish demographic majority, the basis of Israel's self-definition as a "Jewish democratic state". Netanyahu's comments were criticized as racist by Arab Knesset members and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. In May 2009, Michael Oren, the current Israeli Ambassador to the USA, wrote an article in Commentary Magazine in which he discussed the "Arab Demographic Threat" as one of "Seven Existential Threats" facing Israel. Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu both warned that Bedouin population growth in the Negev was a "demographic" or "palpable" threat to a Jewish majority. In 2011 Israel approved a plan to use force to relocate tens of thousands of Bedouins to "government-approved shanty towns," something which has been labeled ethnic cleansing.