What Barak-Epstein audio says about Israeli controlling demographics

Audio of the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak speaking to Jeffrey Epstein, the now deceased convicted sex offender, has shone a light on Israel’s efforts to alter demographics by diluting the Palestinian population it occupies and also revealed ingrained racism within Jewish circles.

Barak told Epstein that he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Israel needs one million Russian-speaking immigrants to absorb, as the authorities can be more “selective” and “can control the quality much more effectively” compared to the past.

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The recording was released last week in a huge tranche of files by the United States Department of Justice.

The former Israeli leader, speaking in an undated meeting with Epstein, says that his country could “easily absorb another million” Russian-speaking immigrants, a clear reference to white Slavic peoples.

Before Israel’s creation in May 1948 and in its early years, the main source of immigration was Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews, as well as Sephardi Jews from the Middle East and North Africa.

Barak, in the audio, seems to disparage Sephardi Jews, saying the country did what they could by taking Jews “from North Africa, from the Arabs, from whatever.”

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 started a massive immigration flow into Israel from various parts of the country.

According to the official data, 996,059 immigrants from former Soviet republics arrived in Israel after its collapse up until 2009.

Their politics have tended to be aligned with the right wing.

Barak also underscores the deep divisions between religious and secular Jews, a dynamic which continues to eat away at the country.

“I believe we have to break the monopoly of the Orthodox rabbinate on marriage and funerals and whatever, and on the definition of a Jew,” he said, referring to the strict religious rules in the religion.

“[This would], in a sophisticated, certain manner, open the gates for massive conversion into Judaism. It’s a successful country, many will apply,” Barak said.

Barak said that the Israeli authorities “can control the quality” of the population “much more effectively than our ancestors, than the founding fathers of Israel could”.

“It was kind of a salvation wave from North Africa, from the Arab [world] or whatever. They took whatever came; now, we can be selective,” he said, adding, “We can easily absorb another million. I used to tell Putin always, what we need is just one more million.”

Barak said that Russians would come to Israel first without preconditions, but added, “Under the social pressure of the need, especially of the second generation to adapt, it will happen.”

Some are welcome, others not

The government of Israel has actively promoted immigration into the country for decades. Americans and the French are especially welcome, and many end up moving to illegal settlements and espousing domination of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, in which they have no previous links.

As recently as November, the government revealed that new immigrants and returning residents arriving in 2026 will be offered a zero-percent income tax rate for their first two years in the country.

Under the reform, which was introduced as part of the 2026 state budget, returning residents who lived abroad for 10 or more years and new immigrants who move to Israel in 2026 will pay no income tax in 2026 and 2027; the rates will be gradually increased, according to the Israeli media.

But a large wave of immigration into the country, when tens of thousands from the Beta Israel community were transferred to Israel from Ethiopia in the 1980s and 1990s, has exposed deep-seated racism.

Beta Israel was widely seen as the main and oldest Jewish presence in Ethiopia.

These Ethiopian Israelis have faced racism, exclusion and police violence against their communities. Many view themselves as second-class citizens.

However, they have rights that Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel do not have, nor have they been under brutal occupation as Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have been for decades.