Stop With the Nonsense That Palestinians Are a Minority in Israel [View all]

[Little Tich]

Source: Haaretz, by Gideon Levy

You can’t argue that the Palestinians aren’t an integral part of greater Israel; occupied and dispossessed, but integral.

A delusion under which most Israelis live lets them invent vacuous excuses based on the virtual reality they’ve built for themselves. According to this fallacy, the State of Israel only controls its own citizens, most of them Jewish of course, but nobody counts the millions of other subjects who fall under its control at least as much, maybe more. They’re invisible.

That’s the only way one can argue comfortably and learnedly about whether Israel is a Jewish and democratic state. The discussion is a fascinating intellectual one, with only one problem: It has long since lost relevance. A country where about half the subjects aren't Jewish can't be Jewish. If it insists on being Jewish by force, it isn’t democratic.

A state where half the subjects are denied rights can't be democratic. In a state that doesn't intend to change its borders or the nature of its rule, this discussion is merely part of the delusion of perpetually parading around naked but feeling fully clothed.

Two peoples equal in size live under Israeli rule: about 6.3 million Jews and 6.3 million Arabs. Half and half. That’s the outcome of 50 years of life in a binational state, not Jewish and not democratic. To the 1.8 million Arab citizens, you have to add the 2.7 million Palestinians living under direct Israeli rule in the West Bank, and about 1.8 million living under indirect Israeli rule in Gaza.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.738457

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