Ha'aretz Editorial: Demographic Time Bomb is a Lie
One of the pro-Israel Right's favorite reports ever is finally being published as an academic monograph:
There is no demographic problem in Israel, there never was one, and most important, there is not going to be one - that is the clear conclusion reached by anyone who accepts the demographic forecast presented by an American-Israeli team of experts... there [are] 2.5 million Palestinians in the Palestinian Authority (West Bank and Gaza) in 2004, and not 3.8 million, as claimed by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, upon whose data most of the demographers rely.... for 2025... 5 million Jews will be living in Israel and the West Bank then, constituting 63 percent of the population, as compared to 4.45 million Arab... for every Arab, there will be two Jews.
A few of things are worth noting:
(1) These figures don't take into account the Gaza Strip, which for reasons genuinely passing understanding was excluded by the Zimmerman team (despite their work being done pre-disengagement). In other words, those who used this study to conclude that disengagement was unnecessary to defuse the demographic time bomb were... er... misguided.
(2) A lot of the debate that has been had thus far has focused on the current Palestinian population. But the Jewish and Muslim populations are close to each other no matter what figure is being used. The critical statistic in dispute is the Palestinian birthrate - a figure which the Zimmerman team seems very sure that they're right on. In other words: there might not be a demographic time-bomb in the West Bank.
(3) None of this makes Quartet pressure any less real - even without a demographic time bomb, there is still a diplomatic time bomb with a constantly shortening fuse.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
There is no demographic problem in Israel, there never was one, and most important, there is not going to be one - that is the clear conclusion reached by anyone who accepts the demographic forecast presented by an American-Israeli team of experts... there [are] 2.5 million Palestinians in the Palestinian Authority (West Bank and Gaza) in 2004, and not 3.8 million, as claimed by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, upon whose data most of the demographers rely.... for 2025... 5 million Jews will be living in Israel and the West Bank then, constituting 63 percent of the population, as compared to 4.45 million Arab... for every Arab, there will be two Jews.
A few of things are worth noting:
(1) These figures don't take into account the Gaza Strip, which for reasons genuinely passing understanding was excluded by the Zimmerman team (despite their work being done pre-disengagement). In other words, those who used this study to conclude that disengagement was unnecessary to defuse the demographic time bomb were... er... misguided.
(2) A lot of the debate that has been had thus far has focused on the current Palestinian population. But the Jewish and Muslim populations are close to each other no matter what figure is being used. The critical statistic in dispute is the Palestinian birthrate - a figure which the Zimmerman team seems very sure that they're right on. In other words: there might not be a demographic time-bomb in the West Bank.
(3) None of this makes Quartet pressure any less real - even without a demographic time bomb, there is still a diplomatic time bomb with a constantly shortening fuse.
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
