THE APARTHEID OPTION WAS WHAT ARIEL SHARON WAS TRYING TO AVOID:

Israel addresses 'demographic' issue (The Daily Star, April 12, 2010)

[A]n announcement made Friday by the Israeli military, which puts tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank at risk of deportation, should make even the most vociferous defenders of Israeli actions reconsider their parlance.

The new measures – which put anyone living in the West Bank without an Israeli permit at risk of deportation – not only throw into stark light the overwhelming and far-reaching nature of the occupation, but also threaten to begin a process of ethnic cleansing.

It has long been a seemingly irreconcilable concern of Israeli leaders that Palestinians would one day outnumber Israelis in Israel and the occupied territories. Failure to find a solution to the conflict would eventually lead to a situation where Israel would either agree to a two-state solution, or continue in its quest to control all territory west of the Jordan River and remain a Jewish wtate only by denying voting rights to the Palestinian majority. Even Ehud Barak went so far as to describe the potential set-up as an “apartheid state” during an address to the Washington Institute for Near Eastern affairs earlier this year.

Enacting these measures appears to be an attempt to bypass this obstacle by transferring masses of Palestinians out of the occupied territory, thus making the demographics less of an issue.