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Will Population Trends Overtake the Jewish State?

(Tablet) David P. Goldman - It is claimed that Israel is fighting the clock - that fast-breeding Arabs will overwhelm the population balance between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. However, the facts speak against the notion that time is running out for Israel. Time, on the contrary, seems to be on Israel's side. The Israeli Jewish fertility rate has risen to three children per female while the Arab fertility rate has fallen to the point where the two trend lines have converged and perhaps even crossed. A 2006 study by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies claims that the West Bank and Gaza population in 2004 was only 2.5 million, rather than the 3.8 million claimed by the Palestinian authorities. Presumably the numbers were inflated to increase foreign aid and exaggerate the importance of the Palestinian population. Most of the phantom population, the report argues, comes from births that never occurred: The Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics "projected that the number of births in the Territories would total almost 908,000 for the seven-year period from 1997 to 2003. Yet, the actual number of births documented by the PA Ministry of Health for the same period was significantly lower at 699,000, or 238,000 fewer births than had been forecast by the PCBS." Jewish births rose from 96,000 in the year 2000 to 125,000 in 2010, while Arab births fell slightly over the same period - from about 40,781 to 40,750, according to a study by Yaakov Faitelson at the Institute for Zionist Strategies. The percentage of students in the Arab educational system out of all Israel's total first grade student body will decrease from 29.1% in 2007 to only 24.3% in 2016 and 22.5% in 2020. Muslim fertility is falling faster than anywhere in the world, with some Muslim countries - notably Iran, Turkey, Algeria, and Tunisia - reaching levels well below replacement. Once Muslim women leave the cocoon of traditional society for secondary or university education, their fertility drops quickly to levels below replacement. The writer is the Spengler columnist for the Asia Times.
2011-07-25 00:00:00
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