Herbert Zweibon

The case against Israel holding on to Judea, Samaria and Gaza is often put in demographic terms. Many believe Sharon’s policy of territorial retreat from Gaza and northern Samaria is partially based on projections by Israeli demographers that Jews will soon be only 40-45% of the population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

A recent study shows this dire prognosis is false. The study was presented by a team of American and Israeli researchers at the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation in Washington and can be read in full at www.aei.org. It shows that the 2004 Palestinian Arab population was closer to 2.4 million than to the 3.8 million reported by Palestinian Authority officials and uncritically echoed by Israeli experts. The 1.4 million gap results chiefly from the fact that the PA numbers are based on Palestine Bureau of Statistics (PBS) 1997 projections, not on actual population counts. The PBS assumed immigration from abroad of 1.5% a year and an annual internal growth rate of 4-5%. But these expectations have not been met.

In fact – small wonder given the PA’s dreadful governance and hence the deteriorating economic situation in the area under its control – there has been a steady net emigration each year since 1994. (Arab emigration would be much larger if Israel encouraged, rather than impeded, Arabs within the state who desire to leave.)

More significant, the Arab birthrate has fallen. Yoram Ettinger, head of the Israeli team, notes: “The research is based chiefly on Arab sources other than the PA’s Bureau of Statistics, such as the PA Ministry of Health….The unanimous conclusion of all these sources is that there has been a very dramatic drop in the Arab birthrate in Judea and Samaria.” Part of the reason, says Ettinger, is that the population has become less rural and more urban and poor. Also women are getting married 2-3 years later.

Outright deceptions account for significant over-counting. Jerusalem’s 230,000 Arabs are counted twice, both as part of the Palestinian Authority and by Israel as part of her own population. The PBS statistics also include 200,000 Palestinian Arabs who live abroad (those living abroad for over a year are 13 percent of those counted in 1997 and form part of the base on which population growth is projected, despite the fact they don’t live in the territories.) And the PA keeps 150,000 Arabs who have moved to Green Line Israel on its rolls, so they too are counted twice.

Haifa professor Arnon Sofer, a geographer who has previously used the PA figures, has reacted angrily. While he says he is willing to acknowledge that the PA lies, and there are 400,000 fewer Arabs in Gaza and 400,000 fewer in Judea and Samaria, he insists that’s “still a lot (of Arabs).” (If there are 400,000 fewer Arabs in Gaza than the PA claims, one has to wonder how many non-existent Arab “refugees” are in that number, blindly paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.) But the 800,000 fewer Arabs -- that Sofer himself concedes -- are not an insignificant number.

Sofer also disputes that the birthrate has fallen as much as the Israeli team says. But Dr. Michael Wise, one of the U.S. team members, an expert in mathematical modeling techniques, says that similar birthrate drops have been found in Egypt, Jordan and Iran. Dr. Wise points out that Jewish growth rates are the highest among the Western democracies, and only a small fraction below the Arab growth rate in Judea and Samaria.

In short the Jewish population west of the Jordan River, far from dramatically declining as a proportion of the whole, has remained stable. The true bombshell is that the demographic ticking time bomb is a myth. The real lesson to be drawn is that Israel can survive demographically even with defensible orders – and it may not be able to survive militarily without them.

Herbert Zeibon is the National Chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel.