|
|
The Zionist struggle to establish a Jewish state during the period of British rule was shaped by population growth and size , even though the demographic issue was seldom fully and publicly addressed . My essay will consider how and why demography was initially treated as a subtext of Zionist theory and practice and explain why engagement with this issue changed with the founding of the Jewish state in 1948 . By positing the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel as not only desirable but as also inevitable , Zionism had to avoid grappling explicitly with the considerable gap in the size of the Jewish and Arab populations in Palestine . Although Palestine’s Jewish population rose during the period of British rule , Jews never caught up to the Arabs , whose numbers increased more by what were understood as natural processes – longer life expectancy and higher birth rates – than by man-made and presumably artificially contrived political forces . Moreover , the numeric...
To the book |
|
|