Clarifying Demography or, What Threat?

My Right Word
Yoram Ettinger

On March 21, U.S. President Barack Obama stated at the International Convention Center that "given the demographics west of the Jordan River, the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine."

Obama has been misinformed by his advisers. The suggestion that Israel should concede Jewish geography to secure Jewish demography ignores demographic trends in Israel, in the Muslim world in general and west of the Jordan River in particular. These trends reaffirm that time is working in favor of Israel's Jewish demography.

Currently, in sharp contrast with the demographic establishment's projections, there is a 66 percent Jewish majority (6.3 million Jews) in the combined area of pre-1967 Israel (1.65 million Arabs) and Judea and Samaria (1.66 million Arabs), compared with a 40% Jewish minority in 1948 and a 9% Jewish minority in 1900. The Jewish majority enjoys a robust tailwind of high fertility rates and immigration, which could produce an 80% Jewish majority by 2035.

 

These 6.3 million Jews (including 350,000 new immigrants not yet recognized as Jews by the rabbinate) expose the systematic errors made by leading demographers...In defiance of demographic projections, Israel's Jewish fertility rate of three births per woman is higher than any Arab country's other than Yemen, Iraq and Jordan. The modernity-driven downward trend of Muslim demography is highlighted by Iran's fertility rate of 1.8 births per woman, Saudi Arabia's 2.3 and Syria's and Egypt's 2.9...Israel's Jewish-Arab fertility gap has been reduced from six births in 1969 to half a birth in 2012. Moreover, the fertility rates of Jewish and Arab women in their 20s and 30s — in Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel — has converged at three births per woman, with the Jewish rate trending above — and the Arab rate trending below — three births. Furthermore, the fertility rate of Israeli-born Jewish women is already above three births per woman.

In defiance of the demographic profession, the annual number of Israel's Jewish births has surged by 62.5% from 80,400 in 1995 to 130,000 in 2012, while the annual number of Israeli Arab births has been sustained at around 40,000 annually. In 1995, there were 2.3 Jewish births for one Arab birth; in 2012 there were 3.2 Jewish births for one Arab birth...

Anyone suggesting that Jews are doomed to become a minority west of the Jordan River is either dramatically mistaken or outrageously misleading.

And, on the other hand, there was this:-

First, peace is necessary.  (Applause.)  I believe that.  I believe that peace is the only path to true security.  (Applause.)  You have the opportunity to be the generation that permanently secures the Zionist dream, or you can face a growing challenge to its future.  Given the demographics west of the Jordan River, the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.  (Applause.)  That is true.

That was US President Barack H. Obama.

Oh, well.

So much for the future.