When did the demography issue first arise as the focus of a political debate?
You might be surprised to hear that even during the British Mandate period it was an issue. After completing my part of the research on this current study, I continued to search for and examine all kinds of written material on the subject. Among this material, I came upon a 1947 document in the Library of the Intelligence Corps, which indicates that the discussion of the number of Jews and Arabs in pre-state Palestine was a political one. Political on the part of the British? Yes, the British made demography a political issue, and as a result, so did the Jews and the Arabs. After finding this document, I sent a photocopy of it to Yoram [Ettinger], and wrote in the margins: “Nothing new under the sun.” Because, when you read this document, you feel as though you might as well be reading a description of today’s debate. First of all, the author’s thesis is that there is not an Arab majority in Israel. In 1947! And just remember, in 1947, it was said that there were 600,000 Jews and more
