Ariel is good friends with Mike Wise who is also my good friend. Mike has been advocating this policy for at least 7 years. At that time I worked with him and Tsafrir Ronen z”l when they developed these ideas about citizenship and representative government. Mike is the guy behind the demographic studies that Yoram Ettinger has been peddling. Ted Belman
Housing Minister Uri Ariel is urging Israel to annex Judea and Samaria, saying that there is no need to worry about the Arab demographic threat.
In a special interview to be published this weekend in the magazine Ribonut (Sovereignty), Ariel says: “The alternative is one state from west of the Jordan River and without any add-ons. At first it will be Area C, which is the majority of the territory and which contains several tens of thousands of Arabs, give or take, and go on to declare full sovereignty.”
Ribonut is published by Women in Green, a group which aims to raise public awareness for other alternatives to the two-state solution.
In answer to the concern that granting citizenship to the Arabs of Judea and Samaria would change the character of the State of Israel through democratic voting, the minister offers several solutions.
“First,” he says, “there is the reality of residents who are not citizens. We have an example in Jerusalem where there are 300,000 Arabs, of whom only 10,000 are citizens, while the rest are residents without voting rights. Of those 10,000, only 3,000 actually vote, a mere 1 percent. They are in no hurry to vote.
“Also, if anyone thinks that we have to grant them citizenship because otherwise it would be apartheid or anything like that, there are solutions. Anyone who seeks citizenship would have to fulfill certain criteria, like speaking the [Hebrew] language, a statement of solidarity with Israel, and things like that. These things are accepted and done all over the world.”
Ariel does not say whether it would only be Arabs who would be required to uphold these standards, or if all Israelis would be.
Later in the interview, Ariel touches on the concern that Arab citizens would mobilize and turn out to vote in high numbers. He says the solution was to change the Israeli voting system to a regional representative system in which half the Knesset members would be elected on the basis of regions. These constituencies would be demarcated by the state, combining Arab and Jewish populations, thus minimizing the representative power of the Arab public.
Ariel also criticizes remarks made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his vision for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“He is significantly hurting Jewish awareness and Jewish identity,” Ariel says. “Even though he has not made a binding decision, when a prime minister says these things time after time, it has an effect.”
As Ariel says start with Area C and see how that goes. Just unlimited travel of legal residents could increase terrorism.
There needs to be a two prong policy.
One to become a legal resident of Israel the Arabs in Area C need to apply and agree that residency is based on a sworn affidative of agreeing to do no harm to Israel or its citizens. They then need to pass a background check. They need to reveal on the application any past crimes or family members that have committed crimes. Failure to complete the form truthfully keeps one from becoming a resident.
2. Citizenship would need to be as was stated above dependent of proof knowledge of Hebrew, loyalty oath and a further background check plus a fee to compensate Israel for the cost of the citizenship process. This should take somewhere between the USA five year process and the Swiss process which takes 15 years.
I would rather Israel annex the territories and send the Arabs to Arab countries.