by Israel Hayom Staff
In magazine interview, Housing Minister Uri Ariel urges Israel to annex Judea and Samaria, says demographic threat is not a concern • Ariel proposes offering Arabs citizenship but holding them to certain criteria to avoid "apartheid" label.
Housing and Construction
Minister Uri Ariel
|
Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi  |
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."
Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=12797
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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