by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
Anyone suggesting that Jews are doomed to become a minority between the Jordan River and the
In contrast with conventional "wisdom," there is a Jewish majority of 67% in the combined area of pre-1967 Israel and Judea & Samaria and a 60% majority west of the Jordan River (including Gaza), compared with a 33% and a 8% Jewish minority in 1947 and in 1900 respectively.
The robust Jewish demographic tailwind and Arab demographic headwind are demonstrated through the absolute annual number of Jewish and Arab births in pre-1967
The number of Judea & Samaria Arabs is artificially inflated by 66%. It is 1.55MN and not 2.5MN. Thus, the World Bank documents a 32% "inflation" in the number of Palestinian births, a substantial erosion of the Palestinian fertility rate and a significant escalation of Arab emigration from Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Documented entries and exits via international passages feature a 20,000 net Arab emigration from Judea & Samaria in 2009, 17,000 and 14,000 in 2008 and 2007 respectively and only six years of net-immigration since 1950.
The significant decline in Arab population growth rate has been caused by an intensive family planning campaign, an unprecedented reduction of teen-pregnancy, a swift urbanization process, an all-time-high divorce rate and median wedding-age, an impressive expansion of education especially among women and enhanced career mentality among women.
In contrast with international demographic standards, the Palestinians include some 400,000 overseas residents in their census. They also include 250,000 Jerusalem Arabs, who bear Israeli I.D. cards and are therefore doubly-counted: as Israeli Arabs by
Demographic doom's day projections have been refuted drastically and systematically since the launching of the Zionist voyage by Theodore Herzl. The founders of the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics and their successors have underestimated Jewish fertility, overestimated Arab fertility, ignored Arab emigration and downplayed Aliya prospects. In the 1940s, they projected 2.3MN Jews in the
In 2010, there is a demographic problem, but there is no demographic machete at
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
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1 comment:
Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is right. Howard Grief has shown Israel has de facto and de jure sovereignty over the West Bank. MInistry of Foreign Affairs Legal Adviser Theodor Meron's legal opinion that the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits settlement in the West Bank has been shown to have been mistaken as its prohibition is only applicable to transfers compelled by the state. If individuals for either political or religious reasons choose to settle in the West Bank, nothing in the Convention compels the State to prohibit them from doing so if the settlement is otherwise legal.
The West Bank should be annexed at the right time. When is the right time? I would like to hear from Ambassador Ettinger on that. In my view, the right time would be when the Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians" make a unilateral effort to declare an independent state, or when they engage in a third intifada and have been put down.
A bar on further Arab immigration into the West Bank will help quite a lot to prevent a Demographic Bomb.
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