No! The Arabs are not out-birthing the Israelis. There is no Demographic Time Bomb
(No! They will not ever outnumber the Jews in Israeli unless the Israeli Supreme Court continues in their self-destruct mode and treats Israel's G-d given land as some fictitious Arab entity created by Yasir Arafat in 1964!)
No Arab demographic time bomb
Redacted from a more detailed article by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger
Jewish Political Studies Review, Volume 29, Numbers 3-4, September 2018
Demographic reality defies conventional wisdom (or lack of)
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Jewish State is not facing an Arab demographic time bomb; but, benefits from a robust Jewish demographic tailwind of births and net-immigration.
For example, between 1995 and 2017, the number of Israeli Jewish births surged by 74%, from 80,400 to 140,000, while the number of Israeli Arab births grew by 19% during the same period – from 36,000 to 43,000 births.
Moreover, contrary to conventional wisdom, the trend of Israeli emigration has slowed down. Thus, the number of Israelis staying abroad for over a year was expanded by 6,300 in 2016 (the lowest in ten years – a derivative of the growth of Israel's economy), compared to 8,200 in 2015 and 14,200 additional emigrants in 1990. At the same time, Israel's population surged from 4.8 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2018.
Since the end of the 19th century, the Jewish-Arab demographic balance has systematically defied the demographic establishment's assessments and projections.
For instance, in March 1898, Shimon Dubnov, a leading Jewish historian and demographer, projected 500,000 Jews in the Land of Israel by 1998, defining Theodore Herzl's Zionist vision as "a messianic wishful thinking." However, Herzl was the ultimate realist and Dubnov was off by 5.5 million Jews!
In October 1944, the founder of Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), and the luminary of Israel's demographic and statistical establishment, Prof. Roberto Bachi, projected 2.3 million Jews in Israel in 2001, a 34% minority. Bachi's projection reflected the demographic establishment's underwhelming assessment of Jewish fertility and immigration (Aliyah) and the overwhelming assessment of Arab fertility. In 2018, there are seven million Jews in Israel, a 65.5% majority in the combined area of pre-1967 Israel, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), enjoying an effective demographic tailwind.
During the 1980s, the ICBS sustained its traditional, minimalist assessment of Aliyah, dismissing the potential of an Aliyah wave from the USSR. But, in defiance of the demographic and statistical establishments – and due to a most assertive, pro-active Aliyah policy by Prime Ministers Ben Gurion, Eshkol, Meir, Begin and Shamir – one million Soviet Jews immigrated to Israel.
In 2000, consistent with demographic political correctness, the ICBS projected a gradual decline of Jewish fertility rate from 2.6 births per woman to 2.4 in 2025. However, by 2017, the Jewish fertility rate was bolstered to 3.16 births per woman and 76.5% of all Israeli births were Jewish, compared to 69% in 1995.
The Westernization of Arab demography
In 1969, Israel's Arab fertility rate (nine births per woman) was six births higher than Israel's Jewish fertility rate. However, that gap was erased by 2015 (3.11 births each), and in 2016/17 the Jewish fertility rate was higher than the Arab rate (3.16 births per woman and 3.3 when both Jewish spouses were Israeli-born). Moreover, the Arab fertility rate in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) is 3 births per woman, compared to 5 in 2000. In fact, in 2018, Israel's Jewish fertility rate is equal to Jordan's, while exceeding the fertility rates in all Arab countries other than Yemen, Iraq and Egypt.
The rise of Jewish fertility reflects the enhanced optimism, patriotism, attachment to roots, communal responsibility and a substantial decline in the number of abortions.
Furthermore, while conventional wisdom assumes that the surge of Israel's Jewish fertility rate was triggered by the Ultra-Orthodox community, reality documents a moderate decline of the Ultra-Orthodox fertility rate (due to the growing integration in the job-market and academia) – while a substantial increase of the fertility rate has been demonstrated by Israel's secular sector, which is the largest sector of the population.
At the same time, the Westernization of Arab fertility (in Israel, Judea and Samaria and throughout the Middle East) is a derivative of the following phenomena:
*Intense urbanization has transformed the 70% rural Arab population in Judea and Samaria in 1967 to a 75% urban population in 2018;
*Most Arab women in Israel, Judea and Samaria have pursued dramatically enhanced education, increasingly completing high school and pursuing higher education;
*Rather than getting married at the age of 15 and beginning reproduction at 16 – as did their mothers and grandmothers – contemporary Arab women tend to delay and shorten that process;
*Arab women have improved their social status, seeking to advance their own careers, thus ending their reproductive period at the age of 45, rather than 55, resulting in less births;
*Rapidly declining teen-pregnancy;
*Rapidly expanding family-planning;
*Youthful male emigration, among Judea and Samaria Arabs, has widened the gap between the number of Arab males and females there;
*Arab women in Israel, Judea and Samaria, just like Arab women throughout the Arab World have substantially expanded the use of contraceptives.
According to a June, 2012 study by the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB), 72% of 15-49 year old Palestinian married women prefer to avoid pregnancy, trailing Morocco (78%), ahead of Jordan (71%) and Egypt (69%). A growing number are using contraception, as family planning services have expanded in the Arab region.
Auditing, rather than echoing, the official Palestinian data
In contrast to the Israeli and global demographic establishment, this essay audits – rather than reverberate/amplify – the official data of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). The essay examines the records of the PCBS against the data published by the Palestinian Departments of Health, Education and Interior, the Palestinian Election Commission, The World Bank, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel's Authority of International Passages, etc.
Unlike the demographic establishment, this essay does not indulge in projections, which are subjective by definition, impacted by a litany of unpredictable domestic and international social, economic and geo-political factors. Instead, this essay focuses only on well-documented and verifiable birth, death and migration data.
In 2018, Israel is the only Western democracy and advanced economy, endowed with a relatively-high rate of fertility, which facilitates the sustained growth of the economy, as well as a potential expansion of the military ranks – if necessary – while boosting the level of national optimism.
Against the backdrop of the aforementioned demographic documentation, the suggestion that the Jewish State is facing an Arab demographic time bomb, is either dramatically mistaken or outrageously misleading. Or both….
Yoram Ettinger
Author Jerome S. KaufmanPosted on September 28, 2018 Categories Israel, the US and the Immediate World, Obama's policies, Political Commentary Worldwide, Uncategorized, US PoliticsTags In 2018 Israel is the only Western democracy and advanced economy endowed with a relatively-high rate of fertility
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