Ettinger - Bursting the Arab demographic bubble

Yoram Ettinger
Israel HaYom
24 July '11

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=222

Demographics or "demographobia"?

U.S. President Barack Obama claimed in May 2011 that Israel should withdraw from the West Bank, saying, “The fact is, a growing number of Palestinians live west of the Jordan River,” and these Palestinians are significantly changing the demographic reality. Is that so?

Obama's comments lend validity to the claim by Mark Twain that, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

Israeli demographers, who serve as the inspiration for Obama and his advisers, use false statistics and systematically inflate the Arab demographic bubble. They claim that Jews are doomed to become a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, and that is why the Jewish state must forego our Jewish geography -- the West Bank -- to ensure the Jewish demography. They demonstrate how the power of unchecked numbers can distort reality, mislead the political and media establishment, lead to incorrect policy and undermine our faith in staying power and in a just cause.

The "demographobia" parade -- the illogical fear of demographics -- began in 1898 when leading Jewish demographer Shimon Dubnov warned, “The establishment of a Jewish state in Israel constitutes a messianic vision ... since there won't be more than 500,000 Jews in Israel in the year 2000.” In 1944, Professor Roberto Bachi, founder of the Central Bureau of Statistics and the spiritual leader of senior statisticians and demographers in Israel, claimed that there would be no more than 2.1 million Jews in Israel in 2001. However, both of those men were mistaken and misleading: In 2001, there were 5 million Jews in Israel.

Since 1967, Bachi's followers have been trying to convince Israeli leaders to sacrifice the dominant geography and topography of the ridges of Judea and Samaria -- the cradle of history and the mainstay of Israel's security -- on the altar of baseless demographic statistics. They are convinced that the Jewish majority west of the Jordan River is short-term and destined to be washed away by an Arab demographic flood. Yet their forecasts are consistently overshadowed by reality.

The demographic reality

In 2011, fertility among Jewish women -- more than 2.9 births per woman and growing -- is greater than that of women in most other countries in the Middle East. In Iran, the rate is 1.7 births per woman; in Jordan it is 2.8; in Egypt it is 2.5; in North Africa it is 1.9 and in the Gulf states it is 2.5 births per woman, and the birth rate is decreasing.

The demographic establishment ignores the negative migration balance of Arabs in the West Bank from 1950 through today (16,500 in 2010) and does not take into account the potential immigration (of Jews), as it has been doing since 1948. In the 1980s, the demographic establishment was off by 50 percent in its estimate of the number of Jews who would immigrate from the former Soviet Union, and claimed that there would not be a wave of immigration even if Jews were allowed to leave. Yet more than 1 million new immigrants ultimately arrived.

“Dire demographic prophecies” consistently prove false. Israeli Jews have become a majority of 66% west of the Jordan, as opposed to 8% in 1900 and 33% in 1947. This figure is likely to increase thanks to a demographic tailwind in the combined area of the West Bank and areas along the Green Line.

The number of births annually among Jewish women increased by 56% between 1995 (80,400) and 2010 (125,000), while the number of annual births among Arab women leveled off during the same time period, mostly due to modernization. The gap between Jewish and Arab fertility was reduced from six births per woman in 1969 to 0.5 in 2010, and it continues to converge, creating the possibility of a Jewish advantage.

In 2011, the reported Arab population living in the West Bank was inflated by 1 million people (2.55 million instead of 1.5 million). That figure included 400,000 residents who have been living abroad for more than a year; 250,000 Arabs living in Jerusalem who were accounted for twice; and 100,000 Arabs from the West Bank who married Arab Israelis (and who are counted in the figures for Arab Israelis as well as those for Arabs living in the West Bank). It also included an inflated birth rate and ignored the negative migration. Meanwhile, a 2006 report from the World Bank about education in the West Bank and Gaza revealed a gap of 32% between the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the number of births recorded by the Palestinian health and education ministries.

The reduced fertility rate among Arabs in the West Bank is greater than that of Arab Israelis, mainly due to a rapid urbanization process, which went from a 70% rural population in 1967 to a 78% urban population in 2011. Increased education and career aspirations among women, fewer teenage pregnancies and family planning have also contributed to the reduced fertility rate.

The bottom (demographic) line

If the leadership in Jerusalem succeeds in leveraging Israel's economic advantage and the worldwide increase of anti-Semitism, as well as expanding Zionist education in the former Soviet Union, France, Britain and the United States, it is conceivable that an 80% Jewish majority in the combined areas of the West Bank and the Green Line could be achieved by 2035.

A demographic problem exists, but there is no gun to our heads and there is no need to formulate a rushed policy based on erroneous data and “demographobia.” The demographic tailwind we are currently experiencing increases national optimism and bodes well for the economy, the National Insurance Institute, foreign investment and immigration -- not to mention our ability to face international pressure and maintain our deterrence capability.

Anyone who argues that Jews are doomed to be a minority between the Jordan and the sea, and should therefore withdraw from land to ensure favorable demographics, is seriously mistaken or outrageously misleading.

The writer is a retired ambassador and heads Second Thought: A U.S.-Israel Initiative.


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