Introduction

Introduction: Arabs and Jews - Only Separation "The State of Israel ... will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex. ... "We appeal ... to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship " (Declaration of Independence, State of Israel, 5 lyar 5708 [May 14, 1948]) "Today, I am in the minority. The state is democratic. Who says that in the year 2000 we Arabs will still be in the minority: Today I accept the fact that this is a Jewish state with an Arab minority. But when we are the majority, I will not accept the fact of a Jewish state with an Arab majority" (Na'ama Saud, teacher from the Israeli Arab village of Araba, May 28, 1976) "Let the leaders of the Zionist movement ... find for their nation some uninhabited country." (Arab writer Issat Darwazeh in the Haifa Arabic newspaper Al-Karmel, 1921) "And the L-rd said unto Abram ... Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever." (Genesis 13:14-15) "We do not recognize the right which you call 'historic' of the Jewish people to this land -- this is our fundamental principle. ... In this land only the Palestinian Arab people have historic right." (Mahmud Muhareb, chairman of the Arab Student Committee, Hebrew University in Jerusalem 1978) "And if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those that you let remain of them shall be thorns in your eyes and thistles in your sides and shall torment you in the land wherein you dwell." (Numbers 33:55) Some years ago I was arrested by the Israeli police and charged with "incitement to revolution." The grounds? I had reached the conclusion that it was impossible to find a solution for the Arab-Jewish confrontation in the Land of Israel (both the State of Israel and the lands liberated in 1967); that the Jewish state was inevitably headed toward a situation like that in Northern Ireland; that the only possible way to avoid or to mitigate it was the emigration of Arabs. Consequently, I had sent letters to several thousand Arabs offering them an opportunity (funds and visas) 
to emigrate voluntarily. The fact that many Arabs replied positively and that a major Arab village in the Galilee, Gush Halev, offered to move all its inhabitants to Canada in return for a village there did not prevent the worried Israeli government from arresting me. Four long years and one important war later, a scandal broke in Israel. It was revealed that Yisrael Koenig, a high official in the Ministry of the Interior who is in charge of the northern region of Israel, had drafted a secret memorandum in which he warned of the increasing danger of Arab growth (which would make Arabs in the Galilee a majority by 1978) as well as of increasing Arab national militancy. His solution included several measures that he hoped would lead to Arab emigration. The pity is that vital years have passed since my original proposal, wasted years that saw the Yom Kippur War produce a major psychological change in Arab thinking. In the aftermath of that war and its political consequences, vast number of Arabs, who in 1972 were depressed and convinced that Israeli sovereignty could not be destroyed, are today just as convinced that time is on their side, that it will not be long before the Zionist state collapses. Then they -- the Arabs -- will hold sway over all that will be "Palestine." The necessary corollary is, of course, that hundreds of thousands who were potential voluntary emigres nine years ago are now determined to stay and await the day of Arab victory. But they must go. It is in order to convince the Jew of this that I have written this book. The problem with so many people who proclaim the virtues of coexistence between the Jewish majority of the Jewish state and its Arab minority is that they hold the Arab, as well as his intelligence, and his national pride, in contempt. There is an ultimately insoluble contradiction between a Jewish state of Israel that is the fulfillment of the 2,000-year-old Jewish-Zionist dream and a state in which Arabs and Jews possess equal rights - including the right of the Arabs democratically and peacefully to put an end to the Jewish state. Those who refuse to give the Arab that right but tell him he is equal think he is a fool. He is not. The reality of the situation is, therefore, clear. The Jews and Arabs of the Land of Israel ultimately cannot coexist in a Jewish-Zionist state. A time bomb in the Holy Land ticks away relentlessly. A Jewish state means Jewish orientation and ties. It means Jewish culture and a Jewish spirit in the Jewish body politic. But above all, a 
Jewish state means Jewish sovereignty and control of its destiny. That can be accomplished only by a permanent Jewish majority and a small, insignificant, and placid Arab minority. But the Arabs believe that the Jews are thieves who stole their land. The Arabs feel no ties to or emotions for a state that breathes "Jewishness." And they grow, quantitatively and qualitatively. They will surely make violent demands for more power, including "autonomy" in various parts of the land. Eventually, the very majorityship of Jews will be threatened by the Arab birthrate. The result will be bloody conflict. If we hope to avoid this terrible result, there is only one path for us to take: the immediate transfer of Arabs from Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, to their own lands. For Arabs and Jews of Eretz Yisrael there is only one answer: separation, Jews in their land, Arabs in theirs. Separation. Only separation. I know only too well what the reaction of the vast majority of people will be to my words. Indeed, it is being completed even as I sit in Ramie Prison. My real crime is my ideas concerning the awful danger that exists to the State of Israel because of the very presence of its large and growing number of Arab citizens. My real threat to the very confused and frightened government is that my ideas are quietly shared by hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israel who, in anger and frustration, now move to support me and give me the power to make my ideas a force in the land. My ideas are not only suppressed by the government but twisted, defamed, and subjected to emotional and hysterical diatribes by people who are too frightened to consider them intelligently or to debate them intellectually. It is far easier to shout "Fascist!" or "Racist!" than to think. It is ironic, though I suppose inevitable, that those whose "Jewishness" is irrelevant to them and who lack scholarly knowledge of "Jewish values" should shout at me, "Un-Jewish!” If one wants to know what Jewish values are, the place to search for them is not in Karl Marx or Edmund Burke or Thomas Jefferson. Jewish values are found in Jewish sources, most of which are vast wildernesses unexplored by the hysterical critics who have suddenly discovered "Jewish" morality. I love the Jewish people and the Jewish state, and it is because of this that I preach the words I do. I am committed to Judaism and real Jewish values, and every word in this book - disagreeable as it may be to most - is Judaism.
It is a human failing to be unwilling to think about, let alone acknowledge, uncomfortable realities. Painful decisions are delayed and painful problems avoided. That which is unbearably difficult to contemplate is put out of mind, denied, and we think that to look away will make the problem go away. It is a human delusion that we Jews -- so eager to find peace and tranquillity after centuries of suffering -- have developed to the finest of arts. But the Arab problem will not go away, because the very existence of the Jewish state creates it. And precisely because the reality is so painful and so clearly threatening to the very foundation of the Zionist-Jewish state, Jews make haste to delude themselves with patent nonsense and cosmetic camouflage. The Arab-Jewish problem in the State of Israel threatens the very philosophy and most deeply held beliefs of Jews. It lays bare the glaring foolishness and misconceptions upon which political Zionism is based. Worst of all, for the secular. Western-oriented Jew, it clearly and inexorably forces him to choose between Western liberal democracy and a Jewish state. I do not wish to lose the Jewish state through either war or peace. I do not wish to see Arabs or Jews killed in the Land of Israel, but many, many will die, I fear. And if it happens, it will not be because we will have done what I call for, but rather because we will not have done it. And so, let there not be hysteria or vituperation or blind refusal to listen, but rather patience to read these pages and honesty in evaluating them. Finally, let each and every Jew ask himself or herself this question: Am I prepared - given peace and an Arab population growth that will make the Arab minority a majority - to allow that majority - democratically - to change the name of the state to "Palestine"; to abolish the Law of Return, which gives every Jew automatic entry and citizenship (and which was the key in Zionist leaders' minds to keeping a Jewish majority); and to end - peacefully and democratically - the Jewish state? The problem is that no Jewish leader in Israel or the Exile has the courage to ask the question or to teach it to the Jewish people. We avoid it even as we raise our money for the "Jewish" state, make our vacation plans for three weeks in the "Jewish" state, and sing the "Hatikva" at bar mitzvahs. The problem is that no one thinks about the question. The problem is that so few think. Dear Jew, do think. It may save the lives of millions. Even your own.
Dedicated with awe and love to my late father, Rabbi Yechezkel Shraga, son of Rabbi Nachman HaKohen, of blessed memory, who returned his soul to his Maker 8 Adar 5738 (ed: 15 February 1978).