The demographic argument against Israel is overstated. Contrary to what commonly is believed, the non–Jewish population in the West Bank is not growing so rapidly that Israel’s Jewish majority is threatened:
Respected Israeli demographer Yoram Ettinger wisely warns: “Beware of Palestinians Bearing Demographic Numbers.” His data indicate that the PCBS has inflated the number of West Bank Arabs from 1.6 million to 2.5 million.
Its estimate includes more than 400,000 overseas residents, the double counting of Jerusalem Arabs, under reporting of Palestinian emigration, and exaggerated birth statistics. But Palestinian distortions are catnip for Zionist “demographers of doom.”
Ettinger’s calculations indicate that Jews now comprise 17% of the West Bank population. Between the Jordan and Mediterranean, 66% of the population is Jewish. Ever since 1995, Arab birth rates have stabilized while the annual number of Jewish births has risen significantly. “There is a demographic problem Ettinger recognizes, “but there is no demographic machete at the throat of the Jewish state.”
There are other reasons why Israel should reach a territorial compromise in the West Bank, but the demographic threat is not the first among them.
Going beyond that, Israel may actually be the demographic superpower in the region. So argues this article, Israel as Middle Eastern hegemon:
Like the vanishing point in a perspective painting, long-term projections help us order our perceptions of what we see in front of us today. Here’s one to think about, fresh from the just-released update of the United Nations’ population forecasts: At constant fertility, Israel will have more young people by the end of this century than either Turkey or Iran, and more than German, Italy or Spain.
The article includes this chart:
A growing demographic power which recently has discovered enormous oil and natural gas reserves. Now all Israel has to do is survive.
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