Paging Natan Sharansky

On 28 February 2005, the U.S. State Department issued its annual country report on human rights practices in Israel and the Occupied Territories. And as Electronic Intifada notes, the most interesting fact in the report doesn't actually involve human rights violations, but concerns the State Department's population count for the area.

The report notes that Israel's population is approximately 6.8 million, comprising the following categories:

-- 5.2 million Jews (this includes those who live in illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories);

-- 1.3 million Arabs (i.e. the Palestinians who remained in Israel after 1948 and 1967);

-- 290,000 other minorities.

The State Department report doesn't give a total for the Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories, but it does list the number of Palestinians by region, as follows:

-- Approximately 1.4 million in the Gaza Strip;

-- Approximately 2.4 million in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem;

-- About 237,185 in occupied East Jerusalem.

As a proud graduate of the British comprehensive school system of the 1980's, I can use a calculator as well as the next person. And my calculator tells me that - according to the U.S. State Department - there is currently a fully-enfranchised Jewish population of 5.2 million people living under Israeli rule, alongside (1.3 million + 1.4 million + 2.4 million + 237,185 = ) 5,337,185 slightly less enfranchised (or completely disenfranchised) Palestinians.

Now, of course these figures are approximate. But - in view of the fact that a greying Jewish-Israeli population has a birth rate of about 2 children per family, while the Palestinian birth rate in an overwhelmingly young population averages about 4 children for Arabs in Israel proper, about 5 children in the West Bank, and 6+ children in the Gaza Strip - the trend is undeniable. EI's analysis notes that, "Israeli demographers have long predicted that in the next several years, Palestinians would once again become a majority in all of historic Palestine, with the risk that Israel would begin to be viewed as an apartheid state where an empowered minority rules over an effectively disenfranchised majority".

In fact, right-wing Israeli demographer Arnon Sofer contended in December 2003 that there was already a non-Jewish majority (soon to be an outright Arab majority) in Israel and the Occupied Territories. And now the U.S. State Department apparently agrees with that assessment. So what are we going to do about it? Surely we, as a nation on a democratizing crusade through the Middle East, are outraged that a minority population in Israel and the Occupied Territories should deny self-determination to the majority? Right?

Really, I hate to state the obvious here, but there are two democratic choices for Israel: either get out of the Occupied Territories and allow a fully-sovereign Palestinian state to emerge there, or stay in the Territories and give everybody the vote. An equal vote. Not a Jewish vote that puts an empowered national government in place, and a Palestinian vote that elects a PA "President" to supervise garbage collection in Ramallah while the future of the Occupied Territories is actually decided by the voters of Tel Aviv. An equal vote. One that actually allows for the Jewish minority to be democratically voted out of government, and into opposition.

You can go whatever lengths you like to pretend that 5.3 million Palestinians and 5.2 million Jews isn't a Palestinian majority. You can dilute the influence of the majority by dividing the Palestinians into as many minority groups as the State Department prefers - Israeli Arabs, West Bank Arabs, Gaza Arabs, Jerusalem Arabs... but they are still collectively a single people, and they are still going to be a majority. You can magnify the importance of the Israeli Jewish vote by allowing Israeli Jews to vote for an empowered national government regardless of where they live in Israel or the Occupied Territories, while limiting the Palestinian voice in choosing that government by allowing the vote only to Palestinians within Israel's 1967 borders. You can use whatever devices you like to ensure minority rule, but don't call it "democracy".

Don't wave your purple-dyed finger at me and tell me you believe in democracy, until the 5.3 million Palestinian and 5.2 million Jewish residents of Palestine-Israel have an equal voice in deciding how they will live - together or apart - in the land they share.