AL QUDS : Bringing the Ethiopians to Israel Tel Aviv's demographic weapon against the Palestinian presence?

Bringing the Ethiopians to Israel Tel Aviv's demographic weapon against the Palestinian presence?

The demographic structure in Palestine has always been an obsession for the Israeli occupation state, so successive governments have sought to increase the number of births and bring immigrants and their loyalists from several countries, by offering them all temptations, to be able to resolve their conflict with the Palestinians.

The official statistics, which showed that the number of the Palestinian population exceeded the number of the Israeli settlers by several times, raised the fears and anxiety of the Israeli occupation authorities, which in turn have tried for decades to achieve a balance in the demographic composition in various ways, but all their attempts failed, and the gap is still wide today and widening. With the passage of time.

In this context, in response to the right-wing camp’s proposal, the Israeli government launched several campaigns within the framework of the “Israeli Return” law to bring Jews of different nationalities and from different parts of the world and settle them in the country, and presented them with many incentives and temptations.

And between the use of its special relations with several governments, and its exploitation of the deteriorating security and economic conditions in different regions, it has actually managed to lure large numbers of immigrants to serve its settlement project. The last of these delegations was thousands of Ethiopian Jews, following the tensions and armed conflicts in which Ethiopia lives.

Strategic demographic threat

Starting from the idea that imposing sovereignty requires demographic superiority, the Israeli occupation examined various mechanisms and means to achieve a significant increase in the Israeli population. Following a deep debate, the right-wing political parties pushed towards enacting laws and legislation to bring in immigrants from the Jewish community loyal to the Israeli occupation state, because the idea of ​​encouraging childbirth was not a good idea, especially in light of the rapid growth of the Palestinian Arab population.

In this context, a report by the Palestinian Statistics Center issued in 2018, revealed that the number of Palestinians has increased several times, more than 70 years after the anniversary of the Nakba. Statistics in this context indicate that the number of Palestinians residing within the 1967 borders is approximately 4,780,000, while the number of Palestinians within the 1948 territories is estimated at more than 1.5 million.

More than two million and 881 thousand people live in the West Bank, including the city of Jerusalem, in addition to one million 899 thousand in the Gaza Strip.

These numbers recorded an increase in 2020, bringing the number of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to about 2.1 million residents, and in the West Bank 3.1 million Palestinians.

These reports angered the Israeli side, which in turn denied them, and indicated in the reports issued by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics that the number of Israelis is equal to the number of Palestinians.

The report, which was presented to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, stated that the Israeli population reached about 8.8 million in 2017, including 6.6 million Jews and 400,000 unidentified Jews who immigrated to Israel under the “Law of Return.” In contrast, the number of Palestinians living There are about 5 million people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in addition to 1.5 million who live in the 48 lands.

In 2020, the center claimed that these percentages witnessed a remarkable increase, bringing the number of the Israeli population to more than 9 million, including 74% of Jews, stressing in this context that about 3.3 million immigrants have come to the Israeli occupation state since its establishment, and it is expected that the number of Israelis will reach in 2030 to 11.1 million people, and in 2040 about 13.2 million people.

In light of these numbers, regardless of their validity, experts and analysts confirm that the Israeli authorities are determined to bring about a change in the demographic composition of the Palestinian people, and its main tool is to bring in more Jewish immigrants.

The current Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, said in 2018, commenting on the plan to bring in Jews from all over the world and settle them in the 48 lands, denying the Palestinian statistics, saying: “The talk is about an unprecedented strategic opportunity to bring the relevant masses closer to the Jewish people, and to lay a firm and clear path before the Jewish people. The minority concerned with joining the Jewish people and settling them in Israel in order to promote the project of the Jewishness of the state.”

The Israeli authorities actually made efforts to motivate the Jews to immigrate to it, but most of the respondents since the 1990s were mainly Ethiopians and people from the former Soviet Union.

Bringing Ethiopians and resettling them

It seems that the Israeli side did not have a better opportunity than the outbreak of tensions in Ethiopia, to seize upon it and to bring the Jews and settling them in the country in order to achieve a demographic balance between it and the Palestinians.

Recently, official media reported that the Israeli government agreed to bring Ethiopian Jews from waiting camps and those who have first-degree relatives in Israel, who are estimated to number about 10,000 Ethiopian Jews.

He called earlier on hundreds of Ethiopians to rescue their relatives, accusing the Israeli government of inaction and negligence in evacuating them, in light of the conditions, tensions and armed conflicts that Ethiopia is experiencing, which has recently intensified in the Tigray region.

In response to the pressures and in response to the proposal of the Minister of Immigration and Absorption, Pnina Tamano-Shata, who is of Ethiopian descent, and to serve its settlement project, Tel Aviv decided to effectively evacuate the remaining Ethiopian Jews. Several statistics indicate that the number of Jews of Ethiopian origin in Israel has reached about 140,000, of whom about 20,000 were born in the country.

At the same level, the evacuation operations carried out by Israel from Ethiopia for years, and which it is now using as a demographic weapon against the Palestinians, were carried out with Ethiopian cooperation, as the two countries have strong relations that have witnessed development since the nineties of the last century.

If Israel aspires to lure the Ethiopian community to it, and relies on the geostrategic importance of Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, then Ethiopia, in turn, is trying to strengthen cooperation and economic partnership with Tel Aviv, and win an important source of funding for the Renaissance Dam.

Saudi condemnation of the storming of the head of the "Israeli entity", the Ibrahimi Mosque

The Saudi Foreign Ministry condemns the violation of the sanctity of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a day after his participation in the settlers' celebration of the so-called "Feast of Lights" inside the Ibrahimi Mosque.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia condemned what it called the "president of the Israeli entity" violating the sanctity of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron in the south of the occupied West Bank.

This came according to a statement by the Saudi Foreign Ministry, carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), a day after Israeli President Isaac Herzog attended the settlers' celebration of the so-called Jewish "Feast of Lights" inside the Ibrahimi Mosque.

The statement added that "the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed Saudi Arabia's condemnation and denunciation of the President of the Israeli entity's flagrant violation of the sanctity of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron."

The ministry stressed that this "step is hostile and provocative to the feelings of Muslims around the world."

She appealed to "the international community to assume its responsibilities to stop the continuous practices of the occupying government and its officials towards Islamic sanctities," warning of "the seriousness of the repercussions of these practices."

And on Sunday, the director of the Ibrahimi Mosque, Hefzy Abu Sneina, told Anadolu Agency that "the occupation forces closed the mosque in the face of worshipers and visitors during the storming of Herzog, and also prevented the call to prayer of the afternoon and Maghrib and the entry of citizens to pray."

The Ibrahimi Mosque is located in the old city of Hebron, which is under Israeli control, and is home to about 400 settlers, guarded by about 1,500 Israeli soldiers.

Since 1994, the mosque, which is believed to have been built on the tomb of the Prophet of God Abraham, peace be upon him, has been divided into two parts, one for Muslims and another for Jews, after a settler killed 29 Palestinians at dawn prayer on February 25 of the same year.

In July 2017, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee declared the Ibrahimi Mosque a Palestinian heritage site.

The Palestinians accuse Israel of working to take complete control of the mosque and turn it into a synagogue.