| Abstrakt: |
This paper discusses the relationship between three variables that shaped Zionist and Israeli policy: Demography, which refers to statistical data and their interpretation, assumptions regarding future developments, and even wishful thinking about the absolute and relative number of Jews in Eretz Israel, and the number of Jews in the world who need, want or are able to immigrate; territory, that is, the boundaries of the Jewish state; and the time available to Zionism to create a Jewish majority in Eretz Israel, as well as the time available to the State of Israel to ensure the Jewish majority on its territory. At the heart of the paper lies the claim that, since the adoption of the resolution on "Zionism of Zion" by the Zionist Organization in 1905, and even more intensely from the start of the British Mandate in Palestine until 1951, demographic considerations were dominant and decisive in shaping Zionist policy. A further claim is that in the history of Zionism and Israel, the demographic issue has been comprised of two aspects--Eretz Israel and the Diaspora--and that until 1951 the interests of the Yishuv and of Israel dictated Zionist and Israeli immigration policy. This paper has a dual purpose: to confirm the claim regarding the dominance of demographic considerations and the priority of Israeli concerns, by describing and analyzing test cases at the junctures of fateful decisions; and to propose alternative or additional interpretations to those already existing in research and the public discourse regarding the motives that led to the decisions taken at those junctures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
