On Fri, 28 May 2010, Joseph Catron wrote:
>
> When a majority of Israeli citizens are Arabs
>>
>
> Which extrapolating current trends will happen never.
>
> Israeli citizens are presently those within the green line, where
> Palestinians are outnumbered 5 to 1. That's not going to change much.
>
It's actually 4 to 1, and projected to shrink to 3 to 1 by 2025. However, you are closer to being right than I thought. The figures I had reviewed concerned populations within the internationally-recognized Israeli borders, and like you, I assumed that "Israeli citizens are presently those within the green line." Of course I forgot the Jewish population of the West Bank settlements. This is the proper way to count Israeli residents, but of little use when considering who will vote in Israeli elections.
However, numbers themselves will only be part of the struggle. Even if Arabs constituted a super-majority within the green line, there would be nothing - aside from domestic and international pressure - to prevent Israel from mailing an absentee ballot to every Jewish Zionist in the world, or pulling some similar trick.
The only way the majority of Israeli citizens will be Arab is if there a
> revolution that fully enfranchises the occupied territories.
>
> You're thinking that's just going to happen by itself when no one is
> looking?
Of course not, but in case you hadn't noticed, there's something of a global movement afoot. Granted, its political reorientation towards a one-state solution has been a slow one (due in no small part to the influence of old-guard types like Chomsky and Finkelstein), but it is certainly occurring. In the long run, I can't think of a single reason Israeli apartheid will be more sustainable than its South African equivalent. (I almost wrote "predecessor," then remembered that both began in 1948.)
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."