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14 israeli emigration policy Steven J. Gold israel’s origins: ingathering of the exiles Israel was envisioned as a homeland for the world’s Jews in the 1890s, and brought into being in 1948, following the Holocaust. The movement for a modern Jewish state was conceived by a secular Jewish journalist named Theodore Herzl as he reported on a series of anti-Semitic incidents culminating in the Dreyfus Affair. Convinced that “the Jewish problem was intractable, emancipation had failed, and that a new approach was urgently needed,”1 Herzl led Jews in Russia and Romania in the formation of a movement called Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion), whose goal was to establish a political entity in the land of Israel. The founders of Zionism were influenced by the political ideals of their time and place—especially socialism and nationalism—as they sought an opportunity for Jews to build their own lives on their own land.A half century later, in 1948, their dreams were realized, and the state of Israel had been formed. Its presence is justified by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the League of Nations, and the United Nations. Over the next fifty years, Israel would overcome a variety of political and economic obstacles, and survive several wars. Its Jewish population would swell from about 500,000 in 1948 to over 5,243,000 in 2001—the result of natural growth and in-migration from many nations.In addition to these 5.2 million Jews (which, ironically, includes about 250,000 recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union “who are not regarded as being Jewish”), there are 1,215,000 Israeli Arabs.2 While other countries have sought to be the symbolic homeland of diasporic peoples, Israel seeks the actual migration of Jews—the ingathering of the exiles—as the basis of nation building.3 Because the state of Israel is based both politically and demographically upon encouraging the immigration of Jews, its emigration policy has to be understood in light of its broader policies of immigration and re-migration. a dualistic approach to emigration As is the case with many aspects of Israeli society, the nation’s emigration policy is an outcome of its dualistic status as both a Jewish state and a democracy with non-Jewish Arabs comprising about 19 percent of its population .4 The emigration of Jews is strongly discouraged, while Jews living abroad are encouraged to return, and to this end they are given citizenship and resettlement benefits.5 Zionism holds that Israel is the homeland of all Jews, including those who cannot trace known ancestors there. Accordingly , when Jews migrate to Israel for the first time, they are considered by national ideology to be returnees. Arabs who left Israel upon its 1948 founding are not entitled to citizenship and often had their property confiscated.Arabs who remained in Israel are Israeli citizens but are excluded from various opportunities and benefits provided by governmental, quasi-governmental, nongovernmental, and religious /ethnic organizations that service the Jewish majority.6 Israel’s official policy encourages the return of Jewish emigrants but not Arabs. It “provides hefty economic benefits to its Jewish citizens returning from a stay of over two years abroad, but until 1985, has denied its Arab citizens the same benefits.”7 Arabs living in the occupied territories are ineligible for citizenship, and more than one thousand who have been defined as security risks have been deported.8 The two hundred thousand Palestinian refugees of the 1967 war have not yet been allowed to return to the territories. According to Israeli demographer Yinon Cohen, with regard to residents of the territories enumerated by Israel in September 1967, “no official policy on their emigration and return can be found.”9 Furthermore, “a former advisor on Arab affairs has confirmed that ‘no government in Israel has ever formed any plan or any comprehensive policy towards [Israeli Arabs].’”10 In official publications, Israel denies responsibility for the problems of Arab refugees and suggests that they should be resettled in Arab countries. Israel’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs asserts that while “Arab countries claim that UN General Assembly Resolution 194 offers the [Palestinian] refugees a ‘right of return’ to Israel, it is not legally binding,” and “Israel believes that the Resolution is not an appropriate solution to this complicated humanitarian issue.”11 Summing up the current position of Jewish Israelis on Arab emigration, an article published in the leading Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz stated, “Not that all that many...

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