A week before Israel’s Knesset approved the Nationality Law, which defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used his speech at the State Memorial Ceremony for Ze’ev Jabotinsky on July 12 to argue in favor of the controversial legislation. Jabotinsky was the founder of Revisionist Zionism and is often regarded as the ideological forefather of today's ruling Likud Party. The law was needed, the prime minister argued, to "ensure the Jewish character of our state for generations." Netanyahu did not elaborate. But against the backdrop of the recent pro-annexation surge in the prime minister’s Likud Party, it is conceivable that the new legislation is laying the constitutional groundwork for continued Jewish hegemony if and when Israel moves to formally annex the West Bank to its territory — and millions of Palestinians to its census.

Netanyahu did not specify in his remarks what was endangering Israel’s Jewish character or how the statute would ward off that danger. But the first sentence of the Nationality Law offers a clue. The text states, "The Land of Israel, in which the State of Israel arose, is the historic homeland of the Jewish people.’’ With the Knesset establishing this as the statute’s initial Basic Principle, the law implies a latent Jewish territorial claim that goes beyond Israel’s internationally recognized boundaries, to the Biblical "Land of Israel." This term, increasingly used by the Israeli right, encompasses the geographical area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, hence includes the occupied West Bank. An annexation of those occupied territories and their residents would indeed pose a challenge to Israel’s dominant Jewish identity.

According to the most recent data of Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 74.5% of Israel’s population is Jewish and 20.9% Arab. “Non-Arab Christians” and others account for the rest. The bureau’s count includes the Palestinians of East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel in 1967, as well as Israeli settlers in the West Bank, but it leaves out the Palestinian residents of the unannexed West Bank areas. An analysis by the bureau last year projected that the current demographic balance is not expected to change at least through 2065.

The demographic picture would undergo a drastic shift, however, were Israel to annex the West Bank. Hebrew University demographer professor Sergio DellaPergola told Al-Monitor that incorporating the remainder of the West Bank into Israel — i.e., beyond East Jerusalem — would add an estimated 2.55 million Palestinians to Israel’s population, resulting in a non-Jewish minority of approximately 40%.