140 chapter four question of security was the notion of Jewish demographic majority, and one that was repeatedly outlined in the 52-page conference report: The high birthrate [of Israeli Arabs] brings into question the future of Israel as a Jewish state …. The present demographic trends, should they continue, challenge the future of Israel as a Jewish state. Israel has two alternative strategies: adaptation or containment. The latter requires a long-term energetic Zionist demographic policy whose political, economic, and educational effects would guarantee the Jewish character of Israel.18 Indeed, since the inception of the State, Israeli planning policy has been aimed at achieving Jewish ownership of land, through the racialized two-pronged strategy of both forcefully controlling and annexing the land and maintaining a Jewish demographic majority in every area of the state.19 This two-pronged strategy was also thoroughly evident in a recent report published by the right-wing Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in 2010, titled Demography, Geopolitics, and the Future of Israel’s Capital: Jerusalem’s Proposed Master Plan.20 Focusing on the municipality of Jerusalem, this report stresses that the Jewish majority in Jerusalem is on a decline so that the preferred demographic divide of 70 percent Jews versus 30 percent Arabs by the year 2020 that was projected by Israeli governments between 1970 to 1985, will have to be adjusted to reflect a more realistic number of 60 percent Jews and 40 percent Arabs. The report even goes on to apprehensively explain that for the year 2030, “some predictions forecast equality between the Jewish and Arab populations in 18 Quoted in Massad (2003, 442–443). In these pages, Massad goes on to explain that the “report adds affirmatively that ‘those who support the preservation of Israel’s character as … a Jewish state for the Jewish nation … constitute a majority among the Jewish population in Israel’. The conference was not a lonely effort. None other than Israel’s President Moshe Katsav welcomed the attendees … [and] the conference was co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress, the Israeli Defence Ministry, the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization, the National Security Center at Haifa University, and the Israeli National Security Council of the Prime Minister’s Office. The conference featured fifty speakers: senior government and military officials – including ex- and future prime ministers – university professors, business and media personalities, as well as American Jewish academics and operatives of the US Zionist lobby.” 19 Moreover, as recently as July 2011, Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat openly admitted in an interview with the BBC’s Hardtalk that he seeks to preserve and maintain a Jewish majority population in the city. See Nir Barkat, Hardtalk, interview by Tim Franks, BBC World Service, July 16, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00hshw4. 20 Nadav Shragai, Demography, Geopolitics, and the Future of Israel’s Capital: Jerusalem’s Proposed Master Plan, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2010, http://jcpa.org/text/ Jerusalem-Master-Plan.pdf. I would like to thank Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian for bringing this report to my attention.