What the facts may lead to

an interview with Hasan Abu Libdeh

bitterlemons: What do you make of the recent flurry of Israeli reports and predictions concerning Palestinian and Israeli population growth?

Abu Libdeh: I think this is purely a reflection of their nightmare concerning their own concept of the Jewishness of the state. They don't want to recognize that the only way to preserve the Jewishness of the state, if one looks at the way Israel was created, is to conduct a comprehensive, persistent and regular [forced] exodus of the Palestinian people because historic Palestine has one indigenous population and one implanted population. Otherwise, the best way for Israelis to wake up from this nightmare is by creating a Palestinian state next door.

bitterlemons: Which of these recent Israeli demographic assessments is most accurate, in your opinion?

Abu Libdeh: Historic Palestine has two populations, Israeli and Palestinian. As of today, the Palestinian population is not the majority. But in two years time--only two years time--we will be reporting that the two populations are equal, regardless of what the Israelis do. In the year 2006, 50 percent of historic Palestine will be composed of Palestinians, and 50 percent will be composed of Israelis. Every year that follows, the majority will be for the Palestinians. I know that [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon has been making his own plans to bring in one million Jews by the year 2010. Even if this happens (which I doubt), the Palestinians will continue to grow as a majority in historic Palestine.

As for the Palestinians that are now Israeli citizens, their percentage is somewhat stable, but slowly growing. Now they are around 20 percent of the Israeli population. Gradually this will increase because the Palestinian population reproduces much faster.

bitterlemons: This poses a lot of political questions for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but is it also a policy problem for Palestinians?

Abu Libdeh: Indeed. With every additional Palestinian, we will have to produce a lot of resources that we may not have. It is a fact of life that Palestinians are more fertile than Israelis, they grow [as a population] much faster than Israelis and with this, there are pros and cons. In my opinion, we will have to face a special music of our own in feeding all these babies and this is a very serious challenge facing Palestinians from a socio-economic perspective.

But the question here is not one of Palestinians trying to overcome Israel through demography, it is a question of Israel trying to preserve a specific nature using means that will have terrible consequences. Therefore, the problem should not be looked at from the Palestinian perspective.

The question is, what will Israelis do? What kind of a state do they want to have? If they want to have a Jewish state, they have only two options. One is to accelerate their own efforts to help create a Palestinian state within the borders of 1967, which means that Israel will retain a majority of Jewish blood and have to live with the fact of a Palestinian minority. But under the current Israeli political and settlement plan, they are only making it impossible for Israel to be a Jewish state.

bitterlemons: Do you think that the Palestinian birthrate has increased with the intifada and do you have data to support that?

Abu Libdeh: We have historically observed that whenever there is an increased threat facing the Palestinian population, they tend to increase their fertility rate. We witnessed this immediately after the Lebanon war, after the first intifada and we do have a slow increase in the fertility rates nowadays. Of course, this reflects socioeconomic conditions--a high number of unemployed Palestinians, women not finding opportunities in the marketplace--these are the typical parameters for increasing fertility rate in any population. We also have limited outward migration, especially during the last few years (before that we had serious inward migration) and a low infant mortality rate, which also affects the size of the population.

bitterlemons: One of the complaints of some Palestinian citizens of Israel about the Geneva accord was that it granted legitimacy to the concept of Israel as a "Jewish state", which in turn damages their own quest for rights as equal citizens.

Abu Libdeh: I think that this concept is a racist concept. Israel should raise the slogan that it is a state for all its citizens--Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc. If they must have a "Jewish state", then they will have to deal with the immense problem of a growing minority that is basically stripped of its rights. In my opinion, I would rather see next door a state that grants equal rights to its citizens and allows all its citizens to prosper.

bitterlemons: How was Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei's recent statement concerning a one-state solution related to demographic issues?

Abu Libdeh: This was a statement of what the facts may lead to: if the default on the peace process continues, the Palestinians will eventually find themselves struggling to survive within the boundaries of a state that is keeping them in large segregated areas. With the diminishing of the chances for establishing a viable independent sovereign state, Palestinians will have no choice but to claim their rights.

-Published 12/1/2004?bitterlemons.org

Hasan Abu Libdeh is director of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.