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It’s official: Israeli govt confirms Jews are no longer the majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea

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Akiva Eldar in Haaretz – “The Jewish majority is history“:

Amid a dry economic report published yesterday in TheMarker lies an official announcement/acknowledgment of unparalleled importance: The government of Israel confirms that between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River there is no longer a Jewish majority. In other words, in the territory under Israel’s jurisdiction a situation of apartheid exists. A Jewish minority rules over an Arab majority.

Hila Raz’s article reports that the Tax Authority is trying to pass an amendment to the law for the purpose of revising the ceiling for eligibility for tax benefits, whose aim, in turn, is to encourage exports. According to the Export Promotion Law approved in 2005, a factory is entitled to a tax break if at least 25 percent of its income stemmed from sales to a market with at least 12 million residents. A Ministry of Finance memorandum on the amendment to the law notes that in 2011 the population of Israel and the Palestinian Authority exceeded the 12 million mark, which enables manufacturers who market to these consumers to enjoy a tax break. The Tax Authority’s diligent officials would like to raise the threshold for qualifying for the benefit by two million residents, so that they will not have to grant the benefit to exporters who sell their wares in Israel and the territories.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics (which is subordinate to the Prime Minister’s Office ), of the 12 million residents living under Israeli rule, the number of Jews is just under 5.9 million (as of April 25 ). Twelve million minus 5.9 million Jews equals 6.1 million non-Jews. In other words, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, there is a pretty Jewish state as far as its laws and customs, but the reality is not so democratic. Foreign sources report that Jews had already become a minority in the area of the greater Land of Israel several years ago. From now on, it is an official statistic.

There will certainly be those who argue that the 12 million includes the resident of the Gaza Strip, which Israel evacuated, and that I should have deducted 1.5 million people from the number of non-Jewish residents. But the 12 million, which does happen to include the residents of the Gaza Strip, is an official figure appearing on Ministry of Finance stationery. If this population “is not considered” for purposes of the demographic balance, the Finance Ministry should be so kind as to deduct it from the limit for receiving the tax breaks and from the balance of its income.

Read more here.

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So what? Whoever thought that Israel’s moral position (or practical position) would turn a somersault when the numbers titled in this fashion? Are AIPAC going to change from tigers to pussycats? Are those American Jews who formerly wrung their hands about apartheid going to suddenly act more consistently with that (former) hand-wringing than they have done with for-more-ancient Jewish morals altogether (“Do not do unto others”).

Still, talk it up. Maybe it matters to someone. Who knows.

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Does the 5.9 M Jews “living” in Israel include the 750,000 Israeli Jewish citizens who work in Europe and America? I understand that they cannot vote, but it was never clear if they are tallied in the population count.

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By writing that “in the territory under Israel’s jurisdiction a situation of apartheid exists” immediately after reporting that Jews are no longer a majority in that territory, Akiva Eldar seems to imply that apartheid exists only when a minority rules over a majority. That’s wrong: the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid makes no mention of majority or minority rule, nor does it limit the scope of the term apartheid to situations that closely resemble the South African model. Here’s how Article II of the Convention defines apartheid:

For the purpose of the present Convention, the term “the crime of apartheid”, which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them:

(a) Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person:

(i) By murder of members of a racial group or groups;

(ii) By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;

(iii) By arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;

(b) Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;

(c) Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;

d) Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;

(e) Exploitation of the labour of the members of a racial group or groups, in particular by submitting them to forced labour;

(f) Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.

In other words, Israel has been an apartheid state since its foundation in 1948.

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I think the number of Israeli Jews that are counted as residents include those who are just registered there and have an address but actually aren’t resident there any longer but live and work abroad; 200,000?

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“between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, there is a pretty Jewish state” . Pretty ? Not from where I am sitting. How about ” Jewishish”.

Great find. How to explain that away ?

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