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Demographic Politics And Population Growth - 2
#41
More lessons in demographics from Saddam Hussain
-----

When in power for 80 years , the 20% Sunnis killed Shias and kurds in large numbers, but the kurds and shias kept mass breeding
But terror cant be used all the time and once the terror is over, demographics rule
Now the sunnis are getting screwed

Thats why I say that stuff like Gujurat reprisals while short term useful
do not solve long term problems
  Reply
#42
VHP asks Hindus to abandon 'two child norm'

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/00120...child~norm'

New Delhi, Feb. 15 (PTI): The VHP has asked Hindus to abandon the
"two-child norm" and increase their numbers to counter the
"frightening Muslim population growth" in the country.

In a resolution passed at the outfit's 'Margdarshak Mandal' (apex
decision making body) at Allahabad last week, the VHP called upon the
majority community to follow the ideals set by Lord Krishna's parents
(who had several children) and "contribute constructively" towards
increasing Hindu population.

The resolution was released here today by VHP senior Vice-President
Acharya Giriraj Kishore, at a press conference.

He said if the "two-child norm" is to succeed, the Government will
have to provide for disincentives including barring from contesting
polls, defranchisement and denial of job opportunities to those who
violate the norm besides "checking Bangladeshi infiltration and Hindu
girls marrying Muslims".

"If this is not done, we will have to give the call to abandon the
norm. With every mouth to feed, we also get two hands. After all,
Krishna was the eighth child of his parents, Netaji Bose too was the
eighth and Rabindranath Tagore was the ninth child," he said.
  Reply
#43
Now demographic warfare from Pakistan

Thanks to Nutwar singhs bus routes

But remember the spadework for this was done by Hajpayee

Have 5 or be islamised
  Reply
#44
Guardian

Now UN worried about Under Population

U.N.: World's Population Is Aging Rapidly

Thursday February 17, 2005 2:16 AM


By LEYLA LINTON

Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Half the world's population will live in cities in two years, the U.N. chief said Wednesday, adding that the number of elderly people is rising rapidly, prompting a need for economic and social changes.

The biggest problem for developing countries was high mortality rates, while wealthy countries faced falling birth rates and the decline in the working-age population, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report to the U.N. Economic and Social Council.

Annan said the population of all countries will continue to age substantially, but the increase will be faster in developing countries and social security systems that depend on workers to pay for those who are retired will be affected.

``Such rapid growth will require far-reaching economic and social adjustments in most countries,'' he said.

More people also are living in cities, the report found. It predicted that half the world will live in urban areas by 2007. In less developed regions, the number of urban dwellers will equal the number of rural dwellers by 2017, the report said.

The United States is the most highly urbanized area of the world with 87 percent of its population living in cities. Latin America and the Caribbean followed, with 78 percent of the population living in urban areas, the report said.

In 1950 only two cities had 10 million inhabitants or more: the New York, Newark, N.J., area with a population of 12.3 million and Tokyo with 11.3 million.

Today, the report said, 20 cities have more than 10 million inhabitants.

The 10 cities with the biggest populations are: Tokyo with 35.3 million; Mexico City with 19.2 million; New York-Newark with 18.5 million; Bombay, India, with 18.3 million; Sao Paulo, Brazil, with 18.3 million; New Delhi with 15.3 million; Calcutta, India, with 14.3 million; Buenos Aires, Argentina, with 13.3 million; Jakarta, Indonesia, with 13.2 million; and Shanghai, China, with 12.7 million.

The report also highlighted the aging of the population, saying there were 600 million people over the age of 60 in 2000, three times the number in 1950, and that figure was expected to triple again over the next 50 years to around 2 billion elderly.

The average number of children a woman gives birth to, meanwhile, declined from five around thirty years ago to three by the beginning of this century, the report said.

Mortality declined sharply during the 20th century, except in Africa, which has been hard hit by the AIDS epidemic, Annan said.

Overall, the world's population reached 6.5 billion in 2005 and could stabilize at 9 billion just after 2050, Annan said
  Reply
#45
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Now demographic warfare from Pakistan

Thanks to Nutwar singhs bus routes

But remember the spadework for this was done by Hajpayee

Have 5 or be islamised <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Whole India's demography will change after April 2005, new Pakistani will become congress vote bank, later they will form Muslim league party and another partition within 50 years.

Good bye India and Hindus.
  Reply
#46
Note Omar Khalidi's 'union territories' are precisely areas where muslims are in-migrating and hindus are being ethnic cleansed as per my census analysis

Have 5 or be islamised

Dailypioneer
Dina Nath Mishra
<b>Let's be open about it</b>

In Bihar, Muslims comprise 16.5 per cent of the population and have been the sole determinants of power for 15 years.

Muslims have played a major role in shaping Indian politics. They form 13.4 per cent of our population. States where Muslims account for more than 10 per cent of the population are Lashkadweep (95.5 per cent), J&K (67 per cent), Assam (31 per cent), W Bengal (25 per cent), Kerala (24.7 per cent), Bihar (16.5 per cent), Jharkhand (13.8 per cent), Karnataka (12.2 per cent), Uttaranchal (11.9 per cent), Delhi (11.7 per cent) and Maharashtra (10.6 per cent).

Muslims are concentrated in UP, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam, especially in districts bordering Nepal. Western UP has been witnessing a demography change for some time .

When Nationalist forces rang alarm bells just after the release of the 2001 Census figures, the secular brigade derided it as a saffron propaganda. Left wing Economic and Political Weekly of January 29, 2005, devoted an entire issue to it. By their hair-splitting arguments about fertility differentials by religion literacy and female-to-male ratio, they pooh-poohed the "saffron propaganda".

A decade back, former IB chief T V Rajeshwar wrote an alarming piece about religious demographic changes in certain parts of India and warned the country that the threat of another Partition is looming large. He is former Uttar Pradesh Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri. When the UPA Government came to power, the so-called saffronite governor was summarily dismissed and Rajeshwar was brought in his place.

Most writers and researchers who have flexed their intellectual muscles to disapprove the so-called saffron propaganda have banked on Muslim illiteracy for the rise in Muslim population. This impression is quite erroneous.

Dr Omar Khalidi was born in Hyderabad and emigrated to the US in 1977. He did his masters from Harvard University and PhD from the University of Wales. Currently, he is teaching in the Massachusetts University of Technology as a staff member of the Agha Khan programme.

In his interview to Radiance Views, a Jamaat-e-Islami weekly, he said: "We need Muslim-majority districts for three reasons. <b>First, concentrated areas provide security. Second, they provide an environment that is conducive to our cultural independence. Third, they provide a political base through which our people can be elected.</b> At present, constituencies have been created in a way that our numbers don't add up to elect adequate legislators.... Hyderabad and Rangareddy in Andhra Pradesh and Gulbarga and certain talukas could be merged to create a Deccan province. Similarly in Bihar, the regions of Katihar, Kishanganj and Purniya can be made into an Urdu-speaking province or a Union Territory. There are regions in Bengal and UP where Muslims can be in majority. Though, a large number of Muslims would still be left out, having these strongholds is important for their future. This would ensure proper political representation in States and we would have our voice in Parliament.... A decade ago, it was not fashionable to talk about reservation for Muslims. Today, Muslims have reservation in Kerala and Karnataka. In Andhra, too, we are likely to get reservation. Don't judge everything from what's happening today. Huq liye jaten hain pesh nahin kiye jate."

The cat is out of the bag. The ummah has to Islamise the whole world. Jehadis are fighting for it. In India, they, too, have an agenda. Dr Khalidi has just put it in words and has, in fact, given a clarion call. Jinnah propounded the 'Two-Nation Theory' and carved out a nation of Dar-ul-Islam (land of believers). The rest of India is Dar-ul-Harb (land of non-believers) which needs to be conquered.

Our brand of secularism has not just partitioned India, but several other countries as well. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Indians don't mind a Barkatullah as Chief Minister of Rajasthan. In fact, most Indians celebrated the rise of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam as President. It was his merit not religion that enabled him to reach the position. But Muslim appeasement by political parties must be condemned.

<b>Our intellectuals and secular parties have an ostrich like altitude. Indians failed to understand Islam, an expansionist political religion. Even now, our intellectuals cry foul whenever the question of demographic aggression and high percentage of increase in Muslim population is raised.</b>
  Reply
#47
GS,

What fertility rate per woman is required for the FC to become a majority in India?
  Reply
#48
FC can never be a majority in India
However by too much womens lib etc, they have screwed themselves
and are down from 16% in 1947 to 13% today and heading for 7%
FC women are well below replacement fertility

FC resemble Parsis in failing to get their women to breed even at replacement levels

Having a fertility of 5 will raise FC back to 16% in about 50 years

Most FC women have careers, are over-educated, and have 1 or 2 kids
and FC will die out just like Parsis and westerners

How many FC women do you see with a healthy fertility of 4-5 ?
  Reply
#49
The time has come to reverse the trend.

There is more hope for the FC than for Parsis or Europeans, since a good chunk still have reverence for the Sastras.

Only two generations ago our grandparents used to have large families.

The FC needs to expand demographically at the expense of Muslims in the subcontinent.
  Reply
#50
WHAT IS FC?

Hmm you mentioned FC are 7 % right now, they were 16% in 1947.

Let me use my brain till someone replies bk

FC ! = hindus (80%)
FC ! = muslims (15%)
FC ! = xtians (2.3%)
FC ! = sikhs (2.2%)
FC ! = jain, bhudish, parsi etc (0.5%)

FC can not be any sub part of muslims, hence it must be sub part of hindus.

hmmm, is it forward class/caste? a new word for upper caste?
  Reply
#51
Mitradena uses FC to refer to Forward caste

All hindus need to do their reproductive duty

but forward caste women have been notably hermaphroditic in failing to breed
adequately
  Reply
#52
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>We two, ours any!</b>
Last word
Sachidananda Murthy
When just married couples are asked "any good news" in our country, the query is whether a child is expected. Such is the eagerness that those who delay the arrival of their first-born, or are unable to give the "good news", squirm at the question asked by relatives and well-wishers, not to speak of impatient would-be grandparents.

A similar question is posed for the second pregnancy too, with less intensity and frequency. And then, of course, there are jokes about PPP (Permanently Pregnant Person). The Pakistan People’s Party was called this when its president Benazir Bhutto had to take breaks for delivering children.

Now PPPs will not be frowned upon by the government, as the health ministry says the two-child norm, propagated for decades, is no more the official policy. It says couples are free to decide on the size of their families, thus ending zealous legislation in some north Indian states which bars persons having more than two children from contesting panchayat elections.

"We two, Ours two" was the theme of the campaign on which thousands of crores were spent by the health ministry. When there was a campaign saying one child for glory (keerti) and another for glow (aarti), women groups had objected that the son was given primacy.

<b>There will be no sniggering when politicians with a big brood occupy high positions like prime ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao (nine children) and H.D. Deve Gowda (seven) or Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav (nine) and once health minister B. Shankaranand (eight). </b>Barring Lalu, the others had children when the small family norm was not in fashion. The ministry’s decision takes the family size out of the public domain, leaving the number of children to planning or passion.

Government statistics show that one out of four pregnancies are unwanted, but few are terminated. Charles Dickens said "accidents will occur in the best regulated families". Many Indian couples do not "regulate" through contraceptives, either due to religious beliefs or because of the feeling that "the experience is not like the real thing" or due to carelessness. Mark Twain once quipped: "Familiarity breeds contempt—and children."

The abandonment of the two-child norm is a careful one. The government does not expect a spurt of pregnancies. It still supports a small family and has targetted 150 districts, all in north and east India, for focussing on family planning. The government wants to bring down the birthrate from the current 2.9 per thousand to the national target of 2.1.<b> Yet it has accepted a social reality that if couples are told to stop after two babies, the side effect would boost female foeticide and infanticide in horror states like Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and even Delhi, where there are more men than women</b>.
Population policies have always been beset by political controversies, even though there is a broad consensus that India cannot just afford to double its population in the next half century, given the strain on resources. While the excess population was seen as a burden leading to disaster in the 1960s and 1970s, <b>now it has become the human resource base for the economic boom, creating one of the biggest consumer societies in the world. Attempts to promote small families has led to the spread of irresponsible fears. </b>Muslim voluntary organisations in Uttar Pradesh had to campaign hard against a belief in the community that polio drops would make the children grow into impotent adulthood.

Coercive policies have backfired, as it happened during Emergency when the entire programme got a bad name. Use of condoms in north Indian states has actually declined in the last five years, as the baby boomer generation believes that condoms are to be used for extra-marital and commercial sex.

China has vigorously implemented the one-child norm for a long time, but now, as its economy booms, the demand is for expansion of the three-member family. Studies have indicated that single children of parents who themselves are the only children, crave for larger families. In India, the size of the family would be now decided in bedrooms, than in government offices!

Feedback: sachi@the-week.com
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
  Reply
#53
http://bojilkolarov.voiceofdharma.com/arti...ndia/charts.htm

<img src='http://bojilkolarov.voiceofdharma.com/images/india/charts7.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' />


<img src='http://bojilkolarov.voiceofdharma.com/images/india/charts1.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' />


http://bojilkolarov.voiceofdharma.com/arti...india/index.htm
  Reply
#54
I grasped more clearly the real size of the threat when in the spring of 1993 I found myself in a remote village in eastern Bihar. Eighty percent of the residents were Muslims and twenty - Hindus. The monopoly of the first over the social life was total. The signs were everywhere written not in Devangari but with the Arab alphabet. The appearance of most of the villagers, their way of clothing, even their face expression spoke that these people not only look like Arabs but that they felt like Arabs, thought like Arabs and their umbilical cord with India is cut (later I would find that the Islam religion is able to leave traces on the faces of people and mould them.) Night and day every several hours from the loudspeaker of the minaret, the prayer of the muezzin was blasting out and did not allow the Hindus, neither the tourists nor those Muslims who did not follow strictly the religious prescriptions, to sleep in peace. I had the feeling that I was not here in India - the land of Buddha and Shri Shankaracharya, but somewhere in the Middle East.

Suddenly, I realized that in the last thousand years India had changed a lot, and for the first time in her millenary history one foreign and hostile to her real essence body was implanting. Everywhere in the big Indian cities I could see the growing Muslim quarters, with their characteristic architecture, with their slaughterhouses, they were everywhere, closed communities, hostile, looking with disdain and disgust at the surrounding community of the “impious”. Over hundred million subjects of Republic India had in fact nothing in common with her, because their heart was a thousand kilometers from here - somewhere in the Middle East. They felt as citizens of the invisible Pakistan (and demonstrated it), citizens of the World Caliphate and wanted to be foreigners in their own country.
  Reply
#55
Worst is Aligarh, feel like one is in Pakistan. Some part of Meerut, Khurja, Hapur, Saharanpur and Agra is same.
Problem is they breed like rabbit and use minority crap to get all benefit available on earth. Don't want to modernize and prefer to live in 700AD with devotion to middle east.
Subsidy for Haj, use temple fund for Madrassa and Mosque and hate Hindusim to core.
  Reply
#56
As Gargi so clearly put it, they breed like rabbits

So why dont hindu women do the same
A knife for a knife, a baby for a baby

Life is Darwin, nasty, brutish and short
Those who fail to match islamic breeding go extinct

Whenever I have recommended counter-breeding 5 or even 3 , which is bare minimum replacement fertility

the response I get from so called hindutva women

1. You are a Talibanist
2. It interferes with my career ( after the muslims take over, the only career these women will have is inside a polygamous harem )
3. I will adopt kids ( adoption barely removes 1% of the fertility differential )
4. Hindu men I meet are unsuitable ( lady there is something called artificial insemination )
5. Producing 5 kids is barbaric
( no hindu text calls for family planning )
6. It cuts down my free income ( when muslims reach critical mass they will grab your property anyways )


Not one Forward caste hindutva woman who fully aware of the muslim breeding problem, has agreed to breed 4-5

All these women are half xtian
  Reply
#57
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Demographic Challenge
Ram Gopal (Pioneer)

In his address to a huge gathering at the Hindu conference in Barmer (Rajasthan) on February 6, RSS supremo K Sudarshan advised Hindus to have more children in order to prevent the community from becoming a minority in the country. He offered this suggestion in order to counter the increasing Muslim population in the Indian subcontinent (February 8).

It would have been better had the RSS chief given a serious thought to the population problem in all its aspects and offer a better solution. India is already overburdened with its burgeoning population of over a thousand million resulting in widespread unemployment, poverty, crime, corruption, etc. Therefore, it would not be wise to offer a proposition for multiplying it further.

As for the diminishing percentage of Hindu population, it is erroneous to attribute it wholly to its observance of a small family norm. For unavoidable economic compulsions, the city-based middle and lower-middle class Hindus are increasingly opting for a nucleus family norm. But then its effect on total Hindu population is marginal. In rural areas, however, both Hindus and Muslims prefer larger family, mostly for economic reasons.

The abnormally high Muslim growth rate is a global phenomenon. Its greater virulence in India may be attributed to three additional factors: One, infiltration from neighbouring Muslim countries; two, more than one lakh Hindu girls are going to Muslim homes annually; and three, there is only one-way traffic of Hindu conversion to Islam or even Christianity. Hence, the foremost need is to plug, or at least neutralise, these adverse factors at the earliest. The RSS may better let the BJP manage its own affairs and put all its energy and resources on social, cultural and religious restructuring of the Hindu society.

It should get in touch with other Hindu socio-religious institutions like the Arya Samaj and Ram Krishna Mission, true dharmacharyas, and work for removal of obnoxious dowry system. Besides, it should concentrate on the proper management of temples to make them the centres of education on Hindu religion, culture and social services. Besides, opening homes for poor Hindus could be an important contribution. It should also strive for rationalisation of the outdated birth-based caste system so that profession, and not birth, becomes the determining factor. Finally, there should be admission of non-Hindus to Hindu-fold.

The current notion that Hindu religion does not allow proselytisation holds no water. Krinvanto vishwamaar yam (let us Aryanise the whole world) is an age-old vedic slogan. The truth is Hindu religion is the oldest proselytising religion. Before Islam made way into India, the people (Shakas, Huns, Greeks and others) who came to India were converted to Hindu religion. Later on, they became its staunch defenders against Islamic invaders.

There is an interesting anecdote recorded as early as AD 315, when a good number of Hindu converts to Christianity were taken back into Hindu-fold. George Mark Morages in his book, A History of Christianity in India from Early Times to St Francis Xavier, AD 52 to 1542, (1964) observed: "In the third century, the peaceful life of this (Christian) community was disturbed by the presence among them of a teacher who succeeded in perverting a good many of their number. A sorcerer called Maikka Vachakar came (to Quilon) and converted back to Hinduism about half a dozen families subsequently come from the Coromandel coast (perhaps from Puhar itself), and 20 families of local Christians (presumably in Quilong)."
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

his response..

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Time for resurgent Hinduism-full text of the letter:
Regain lost glory
I had never imagined that my article, “Demographic challenge” (February 28), would create such a stir. My point about Hinduism being the oldest proselytising religion seems to have aroused the readers. There are many who believe that the concept of proselytisation was unknown to Hinduism since it is the oldest religion of the world. It is significant that the Vedic people who called themselves Aryans wanted to convert the original inhabitants of the country, the Dasas or Dasyus. In my view such attempts as assimilation wherein the natives gradually adapted themselves to the Aryan way of life was nothing but proselytisation. The rishis in the Vedic age carried their message far and wide. Thus, the Greek, including the Huns and Shakas, when they came to India, converted to Hinduism. At the same time Islam too was on the ascendant in West Asia and gradually emerged as a strong political force in India, forcing Hinduism to recede into the background. On the other hand, since Hinduism prohibited sea voyage, it was difficult to send its messages across. It was soon closeted leading to the dilution of the Vedic precept, Krinnavanto vishwam aryam (let us Aryanise the whole world). It is for Hindu leaders to decide whether they want to regain the lost glory of Hinduism and pursue the original goal of Aryanising the world or continue with their suicidal dhimmitude. Today’s world order is determined to strike a blow on Hinduism. This is exemplified by the recent developments in Nepal and their impact on India. Whereas Nepal’s Hindu monarch is facing brickbats, the country has turned a blind eye to the misdemeanours of Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf. Thus, Hinduism must thwart any attempt by the Islamic and Christian world to usurp India and destroy its religious and cultural ethos.
Ram Gopal
Paschim Vihar,New Delhi <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
  Reply
#58
Per a xtian evangelical site
Islam is a biological problem
Meaning they breed too fast to be converted
By the time you convert 1, they breed 100
Reconversion efforts are thus guaranteed to fail, unless accompanied by counter-breeding, which slows down islam so that reconversion has a chance to work

G.S
  Reply
#59
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4333159.stm

Err.. What if someone decides to have 2 girls ? And when a woman conceives and its a male child then what ? Isnt this promoting male foeticide ? And what would be the value of 1 lakh rupees in 20 years ? Is this even supposed to mean anything ?
  Reply
#60
http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-abunimah110305.htm



Defusing Israel's "Demographic Bomb"


By Hasan Abu Nimah

11 March, 2005
The Electronic Intifada

Israel has long lived in fear of the so-called "demographic bomb" -- the fact that the Palestinian population in Israel and the occupied territories is increasing much faster than the Israeli Jewish population. While Israeli Jews thought the day they would become a minority was perhaps still twenty years away, the evidence is increasing that the bomb has already exploded and Palestinians are already a majority in historic Palestine, as they were until Israel was created.

According to a new US government report (The State Department's Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004), the Palestinian population in Israel and the occupied territories now exceeds 5.3 million, while the Jewish population stands at 5.2 million. The report states that the population of Israel stands at 6.8 million, of whom 5.2 million are Jews, 1.3 million are Arabs, and 290,000 are other minorities (which apparently includes even more Arabs like Druze and bedouins). The report also puts the number of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip at approximately 1.4 million, in the West Bank at approximately 2.4 million, and in East Jerusalem at nearly 240,000. The figures were analysed by the website The Electronic Intifada.

This new reality has to be confronted with much more than the symptomatic treatment being applied to the conflict now with the clear intention on Israel's part to buy more time to create more facts on the ground in the form of settlements. The settlements have done much to change the situation, but they, too, are being superseded by other facts on the ground, created by the natural growth of the population.

Over the years, Israelis have counselled various approaches to cope with the day when Israeli Jews are a minority population ruling over a majority with no rights. Some advised that Israel should withdraw from much of what its army conquered. Otherwise, they warned, Israel could only preserve its democracy by giving civil and political rights to the enlarged Palestinian population, but lose its "Jewish character". Or it could preserve the Jewishness of the state by maintaining Palestinians as second-class citizens but be openly viewed as an apartheid regime.

When Israel was created in 1948, two conditions for its survival in a predictably hostile environment were required. One was the physical removal of much of the indigenous Palestinian population. The other was that it had to possess enough military capability to counter any Arab attempt to defeat, at any time, the Zionist project for Palestine. To meet the first condition, much of the land was ethnically cleansed, starting in 1947 and continuing well into the 1950s. In order to meet the second condition, Israel realised it needed a superpower sponsor -- which it found in the United States -- and quickly built up an impressive conventional and nuclear arsenal.

At the end of the 1948 war, Israel had established itself by force on 78 per cent of the historic land of Palestine. Through ethnic cleansing and terror, all but 170,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes in the area that became Israel.

The total of Arab Christian and Muslim population of Palestine in 1946, according to a Palestine government estimate submitted to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in 1947, was 1,269,000. About two thirds of all those people were expelled or fled from their homes, towns and villages in Palestine, taking refuge in neighbouring countries. British figures quoted in Benny Morris' book on the Palestinian refugee problem put the number of those who were forced out at 810,000, of which 210,000 went to Gaza, 320,000 went to the West Bank, and 280,000 went to Lebanon, Syria and Transjordan. There were fewer than 600,000 Jews in Palestine on the eve of the war.

With most of Palestine depopulated and occupied, Israel seemed to be in control. In later years, Ben Gurion was quoted as saying: "We must do everything to ensure they never return, the old will die and the young will forget." This is exactly what did not happen, with Israel now facing new facts, equally irreversible and much harder than those it created, to counter.

It is true that Israel built settlements, confiscated more land, destroyed more houses and farms, ethnically cleansed more Arabs and built by-pass roads (for Jews only), with the result that less than 10 per cent of Palestine remains uncolonised, but rather than reducing the figure of 170,000 Arabs who stayed in Israel, the reality now is that there are more Palestinians than ever, and they exceed the number of Jews despite the decades of efforts Israel made to bring Jews to Palestine from all over the world.

What is baffling is that Israel seems to have chosen and predetermined the very thing it feared most. By insisting on keeping the territories it occupied in 1967, it effectively reversed the "benefits" of the ethnic cleansing of 1947-48. Clearly, successive Israeli governments thought they would eventually find a way to keep the land and get rid of the people (physically or politically), but time has only worked against this Israeli intention and yet, Israel's embrace of the occupied territories is only growing tighter as it keeps building settlements while the international community watches and does absolutely nothing to enforce its own laws.

The real dilemma now is that if Palestine is to be partitioned, it must be divided according to an equitable formula. The original 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine was grossly unfair because it awarded more than half the country to the Jewish minority which, at the time, numbered no more than one-third of the total population. Naturally, the indigenous Palestinian population wanted nothing to do with such a partition, imposed without their consent by outside powers. But what was unjust and unworkable in 1947 looks very sane compared with what the peace process industry is proposing now -- to squeeze millions of Palestinians into fragmented reservations covering about 10 per cent of Palestine and call it a Palestinian state, while the Israeli Jewish minority continues to control 90 per cent of the country and use it for its exclusive benefit. Neither this nor any other apartheid formula will do anything other than renew and prolong the conflict.

A powerful army and a nuclear bomb may have been useful deterrents to Israel when it perceived its main enemies to be surrounding Arab states. But no Arab state presents any remote threat to Israel today. The "enemy" now is right inside Israel and the lands it occupies. It is not an army to be defeated or to be threatened by nuclear weapons. No matter how much military might Israel has, over five million Palestinians cannot be subjected to Israel's cruel, degrading rule forever, nor can they be ethnically cleansed.

In any solution, whether it involves two states or one, the only way to defuse this "demographic bomb" is for Israel to abandon the racist doctrines according to which an entire group of human beings -- women, men, the elderly and babies -- are viewed, merely by the fact of their existence, to be a "threat", to be walled in, ghettoized and treated as an alien presence in the land they have lived on and nurtured for generations.

Ambassador Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nation
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