Amid the high emotion of Israel's evacuation from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank enclaves, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's acknowledgement of why the settlements were untenable has passed with little comment. "The changing reality in the country [...] required a change," Mr Sharon said in his televised speech last week."We cannot hold on to Gaza forever. More than a million Palestinians live there and double their number with each generation."
In other words, demography - not security - is driving the so-called disengagement plan.
This has long been the explanation of most analysts, but it is the first time it has been articulated so clearly by Mr Sharon. Israel's dilemma is, how can it be a Jewish state if there is a Palestinian Arab majority residing in territory under Israeli control?
The demographic struggle manifests itself in several ways, some of them constructed in steel and concrete - the "strengthening of settlements" and the West Bank barrier - but other manifestations are more subtle. Take, for example, Beit Safafa - a dilapidated Arab village long since engulfed by the southern expansion of Jerusalem - now surrounded on all sides by Jewish settlements and neighbourhoods. The village is famous for straddling the old post-1948 Green Line between Israel and Jordanian-controlled West Bank, with both halves coming under Israeli control after the 1967 war.
That means about half its residents have Israeli citizenship while the rest are West Bank Palestinians with Israeli-issued Jerusalem residency papers. In the past, the former have always felt superior to the latter - enjoying rights and privileges as "Israelis" that their "occupied" cousins lacked. "That is all changing," says one Israeli Arab resident. "Jews used to view us with respect, now they look at us the enemy, like people from the West Bank."
The speaker, and everyone else I met in Beit Safafa, spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared the consequences of getting on the wrong side of the Israeli authorities. Residents cite a litany of official government measures, as well as their daily interaction with Israeli Jews, that underline a clear message. "They are all saying the same thing: It's not your land; what are you doing here?" says one young man, a sound engineer...
The reality is straightforward, and the Jews have finally reached the unavoidable conclusion: Israel is for Jews and the secular, not for Moslems, or Christians or any other religion. If the Arabs wish to remain, they may continue doing so only if they renounce Islam, or if they convert to Judaism.