Demographic drivel

Editorial

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics recently released data indicating “that there were around 5.8 million Palestinians living in historical Palestine at the end of 2012, while ... by end of 2012 [the population] is expected to reach 6.0 million Jews.” If current growth rates continue, “the number of Palestinians in historical Palestine will total 7.2 million compared to 6.9 [million] Jews by the end of 2020.”

Instead of examining the implications of a growing Palestinian population in the already impoverished, economically depressed territories and in areas rife with internal conflict, such as Syria, or other such heady topics, the approximately 130-word Jan. 2 Associated Press article was published by most newspapers without context or analysis. It contained two unattributed comments: “Arabs will outnumber Jews in the Holy Land by the end of the decade, a scenario that could have grave implications for Israel” and “[t]he demographic issue is a main argument for Israeli backers of creation of a Palestinian state. They say relinquishing control of the Palestinian territories and its residents is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a democracy with a Jewish majority.”

For its part, Ynet uncritically interviewed PLO official Hanan Ashrawi, a skilled politician and veteran activist, who has a BA and an MA from the American University of Beirut’s department of English and a PhD in medieval and comparative literature from the University of Virginia. This is relevant because the incomprehensibility of her comments to Ynet cannot be blamed on language difficulties. About the PCBS’s report, she said: “This projection could lead to a demographic crisis which could jeopardize the two-state solution and lead to a de facto one-state solution. This solution will not be convenient for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. If things go on this way, we will eventually be the majority, but we are giving Israel the chance to realize that the Palestinians can have a democratic state alongside it.”

Leaving aside the question of how a projection could lead to a crisis, how is Palestinian population growth a problem for anyone but the Palestinians themselves and the governments under which they live? For Israel, another million or so hostile neighbors (which currently stand at about 118 million, if every single Arab is hostile to Jews) probably can’t be a huge concern or, at least, it’s a concern of which Israel is fully aware, as growth such as that in the PCBS report doesn’t happen suddenly – if there were to be a catastrophic incident somewhere in the world that resulted in a spike in immigration, that would be a different situation altogether, less predictable and potentially crisis material.

And how would population increases in Gaza and the West Bank lead to a one-state solution? Unless Israel is suicidal enough – as are those, including members of the ruling Likud party, who want to reestablish an Israel that incorporates the biblical Judea and Samaria – to try and forcefully annex the West Bank and its more than two million Palestinian Arabs, Jews will form the majority within Israel proper for some time yet. The annual growth rate of the country’s Arab (mainly Muslim) population was 2.4 percent in 2011, as it has been for the last while, down from a high of 3.4 percent between 1996-2000, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. In 2011, the Jewish population grew 1.8 percent, which is similar to previous years; in the 1990s, with the influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, it was about three percent a year. Overall, as of September 2012, Jews comprised 75.4 percent of Israel’s total population of almost eight million, Arabs 20.5 percent, others 4.1 percent. To be in an immediate demographic crisis, Israel, therefore, would also have to annex Gaza’s 1.7 million Palestinians, as well as another half million or so – according to the PCBS report, “UNRWA records show that the number of Palestinian refugees registered in Lebanon was 436,154 at the end of 2011.”

By almost any measure, a one-state “solution” would be more than inconvenient for Israelis – it would effectively put an end to Israel as a Jewish state. Most Israelis would end up fleeing the country, as an estimated 800,000-plus Jews were forced to leave Arab nations in the Middle East and North Africa between 1948 and the early 1970s.

While Ashrawi amuses with the generosity of “giving Israel the chance to realize that the Palestinians can have a democratic state” – the idea that a Palestinian state would be democratic belies every scrap of evidence to date – the veiled threat is there. But whether a Palestinian state develops alongside Israel is not dependent on demographics.

“The Israeli government better understand that we’re not going anywhere and that it will have to accept the principle of a Palestinian state,” Ashrawi told Ynet. Pre-election posturing and fringe elements aside, the majority of Israelis have done that, albeit with conditions related to right of return, boundaries and security. While Israel can do some peace preparation on its own, the formation of an actual, functioning Palestinian state requires the millions of Palestinians living in the territories to also accept the principle of a Palestinian state, not to mention a democratic Jewish state alongside it.

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