After ‘apartheid’ stir, experts question perceived demographic threat to Israel
By Alex Traiman/JNS.org
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent controversial remark that Israel risks
becoming “an apartheid state” in the absence of a two-state solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict shined a spotlight on the perceived demographic threat to Israel—a
threat that some experts say is not based on current reality.
The term “apartheid” draws references to a once-bigoted discriminatory policy of
segregation in South Africa, in which a minority white-ruling elite held a monopoly on
leadership over a black majority population. Imposing the term on Israeli policy would
indicate that Israeli Arabs do not have equal rights, and that Jewish Israelis are on the
verge of becoming a ruling Jewish minority.
“It is outrageous that U.S. policymakers would find it opportune to irresponsibly and
recklessly accuse Israel of apartheid while Arabs in Israel are the only Arab community
in the Middle East that benefits from Western democracy, civil liberties, and freedom of
speech,” former Israeli ambassador Yoram Ettinger, a member of the American-Israel
Demographic Research Group, told JNS.org.
“The root of [Kerry’s] unfortunate and erroneous statement has to do with a devastating
ignorance of the demographic balance of Jews and Arabs west of the Jordan River,” he
said.
While Jews currently make up a solid majority of Israeli residents, many have argued that
once-high Arab birthrates combined with modest Jewish birthrates could mean the end of
the Jewish population edge, and create a situation in which Jews would be forced to rule
over a majority of Palestinians or cede power. Yet a relatively recent two-way shift in
birthrates is shifting a major paradigm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Maybe the demographic threat was real 10-20 years ago, but not anymore,” said Dr.
Guy Bechor, an Israeli historian, lawyer, and professor who currently runs the blog
Gplanet.co.il.
“There is a rise of Jewish fertility rate in Israel, and a decline of Arab fertility rate in
Israel and in the Palestinian Authority,” Bechor told JNS.org.
Bechor noted that in the 1970s and ’80s, the fertility rate per Muslim mother in Israel was
more than 8 children, and today the rate is 3.2.
“In the Jewish community, 20 or 15 years ago, fertility rates were 2.5, and now it is more
than 3 children per mother,” he said. “The numbers today are virtually the same between
Arab and Jewish families.”
A dramatic decline in Arab fertility rates can also be seen in virtually every Middle East
country, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey, Bechor observes.
Israel, meanwhile, is the only first-world nation in the world currently experiencing an
increase in fertility—more than a full child above the noted replacement rate of 2.1
children per family.
“Four is the new three,” Bechor said. “There is a renaissance of the Jewish fertility rate in
Israel. Today, there is a clear Jewish majority in Israel and this majority will continue to
grow in the next few years.”
There are two other major factors affecting Israel’s population balance: immigration, and
the misrepresentation of census statistics by the Palestinian Authority.
Since before its creation, Israel has had an aggressive Jewish immigration program, with
millions of Jews arriving from Europe, Arab countries, and the former Soviet Union.
Today, Jews from around the world continue to immigrate to Israel, most noticeably from
France and Ukraine.
“Jews have benefitted since 1882 from an annual net Jewish immigration, and the next
few years are very promising for a potential wave of aliyah [the Hebrew term for Jewish
immigration meaning ascending],” Ettinger said. “Therefore, not only don’t we have an
Arab demographic timebomb in Israel, but there is major demographic Jewish
momentum.”
The “demographic timebomb” has been a prevailing theory many historians and
demographers have assumed for a small Jewish nation in a predominantly Muslim region
since before the foundation of the state. Yet according to Ettinger, these theories have
been repeatedly proven false.
“In 1898, Jewish historian Shimon Dubnow chastised [Theodor] Herzl’s ideology about
Zionism, and published a projection that under the best-case Jewish scenario, no more
than 500,000 Jews would live west of the Jordan River by 2000. He was off by five and a
half million Jews,” Ettinger said.
Later, Professor Roberto Backi similarly attempted to dissuade Israeli Prime Minister
David Ben-Gurion from declaring independence in 1948, claiming that Jews could not
sustain a majority,
“He projected there would be 2.3 million Jews in Israel by 2001, a 33-percent minority
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean,” Ettinger said. “He was wrong by
roughly 4 million Jews.”
Today’s demographers, according to Ettinger, are making the same mistakes—and
worse—by adhering to intentionally inaccurate and misleading data provided by the
Palestinian Bureau of Statistics on the number of Palestinians living in the West Bank
and Gaza.
Ettinger cites numerous statistical inconsistencies and double counting relating to
birthrates and net emigration by Palestinians to Europe and other countries, as well as
claims that some 300,000 Palestinians live in Jerusalem as Palestinian citizens even
though they are Israeli citizens who are counted in Israel’s census.
“All in all there is a 1-million person gap, or 1 million artificial inflation of the number of
Palestinian residents in Judea and Samaria, which is 1.7 million and not 2.7 million, as
widely reported,” Ettinger said. “And there is a gap of roughly 250,000 Palestinians in
Gaza.”
Bechor, who has taught at both Harvard University and Israel’s Interdisciplinary Center
in Herzliya, said the increases in Jewish birthrates not only change the paradigm of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also change the overall balance of world Jewry. He notes
that Jews in the Diaspora have declining fertility rates, and have dropped below the
replacement rate of 2.1 children per family. Yet despite the decline of global Jewish
populations, “because of the increase of the Jewish fertility rate in Israel, the numbers of
Jews around the world are increasing for the first time since the Holocaust,” Bechor said.
“Today, there are more than 1 million more Jews living in Israel than in America,” he
said. “For more than 100 years, many believed that America was the solution for the
Jewish people. But today, Israel is the center of the Jewish people, and all the other
countries are satellites.”
“Contrary to what Secretary Kerry and President Obama assume, Jewish majority west of
the Jordan River is not only secure, but it is about to grow,” said Ettinger. “In fact, we are
now at the beginning of major Jewish demographic momentum.”