liberal pretence of a jewish state139 concern around non-Jewish (i.e. Palestinian-Arab) births, has shaped Israel’s public debate.17 Indeed, Israeli economic, political, social and military considerations have historically been sacrificed on the altar of Jewish demographic dominance. The politics of a ‘demographic competition’ between Arabs and Jews is embedded in the cultural code of Israeli society, fuelling a national narrative of an outnumbered Jewish collective in a hostile environment. With this narrative, Jewish demographic majority is reinforced, not merely as a tool of political survival, but also as a moral and civic necessity. In fact, even in the 1940s, Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion began stressing a ‘demographic duty’ – through which the popular phrase, ‘making children for Ben-Gurion’ surfaced among Israeli Jews (Shalev and Gooldin 2006, 166). Later, in 1948, when Chaim Weizmann learned of the Palestinian exodus and mass evacuations of Israeli territory, the senior representative of the Zionist movement and first President of the State of Israel deemed it “a miraculous simplification of Israel’s tasks” (Lustick 1980, 28). This Israeli demographobia was further entrenched in an institutional capacity after the 1967 war with a government resolution to establish a Center for Demography, as it found it “necessary to act systematically to realize a demographic policy that is directed to creating an atmosphere which encourages birth, taking into consideration that it is vital to the future of the Jewish people” (Shalev and Gooldin 2006, 167). The notion that the future of the Jewish people is dependent on Jewish demographic supremacy was also adopted in December 2000 when the Institute of Policy and Strategy at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center in Israel hosted the first of a proposed series of annual conferences addressing the strength and future security of Israel. Part and parcel of the 17 For instance, Israeli professor and geo-strategist Arnon Soffer is one of the architects of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s wall in the West Bank and often labeled the ‘intellectual father’ of the 2005 Gaza disengagement plan. In a May 2004 interview with The Jerusalem Post on the disengagement plan, Soffer, explained that the move “doesn’t guarantee ‘peace,’ [but that] it guarantees a Jewish- Zionist state with an overwhelming majority of Jews.” Later, in a November 2007 interview with Al Jazeera English on his considerations in designing the West Bank apartheid (or what he calls the ‘annexation’) wall, Soffer states “If you ask me how I did the map I would say 90 percent I took in my consideration demography, two or three percent holy sites and maybe seven or eight percent only security.” So, claims by Israeli pundits that the wall is mainly motivated by security concerns are misleading and ignore the widespread demographic motivations of Israeli political decision- and policy-makers. See Ruthie Blum, “It’s the demography, stupid,” The Jerusalem Post, May 20, 2004, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename =JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1085023337456&p=1074657885918; Al Jazeera English, “West Bank wall divides neighbours,” November 27, 2007, http://aljazeera.com/news/ middleeast/2007/11/2008525183816999165.html.