Per the numbers below will the surrounding Palestinian Arab population simply overwhelm Israel in time? Can Israel crank up it’s population enough through immigation alone or will limited land area constrain that option? Can Palestinian Arabs really continue to increase population numbers dramatically? How will Palestinians support these large family sizes in a relatively low resource environment?
Leave it to the Abrahamic religions to settle disputes by reproduction. [sigh]
If memory serves the US had a decided advantage using this tactic in some of the land grabs/wars it engaged in with Mexico. I don’t think this is necessarily a “religious” tactic or one specifically “Abrahamic”. The issue is whether more population always/usually wins in a constrained area or whether this strategy has real world limits in an area with limited resources.
Seems to me Israel’s best strategy would be teaching all Palestinian women to read.
Bryan is a wise man.
The single most important factor in high birth rates is marginalization and poor education of women. An educated populus, especially one that includes women as equal partners, is less likely to have very high birth rates. IF Israel offers such public education opportunities to its Arab citizenry then the risk of becoming an Arab state is reduced.
A long term peace with a viable and economically successful Palestinian state also reduces such risk, by making emigration to such a state an attractive option.
Palestinian “Right to Return” is a nonstarter for just this reason.
It’s still a while away. In Israel proper 20% of the population is Arab. A long way from an Arab pluality. I’m also unsure if their birth rate is as high as their brethern (sistern? ;)) in the occupied territories, given that their educational status, economic status and civil liberties are better off than for most Arabs living elsewhere, and certainly than in the occupied territories. Arabs in occupied areas are not in Israel. They will hopefully be citizens of a peacefully coexisting Palestine … someday.
So Israel has some time to figure out how to be a Jewish state without being a theocracy … or long term if it can be secular and “Jewish” at the same time. Once there is peace she will have to figure this out for herself.
Thank you, and I’ll be adding that to my rarely-used signature line.
I swear, when I saw the thread title my first thought was “Looks like december is up to his old tricks again,” before I saw astro’s name. Tell me honestly, everybody—didn’t the style of the thread title remind you of december?
If my experience with Civilization III is any indication, that strategy works incredibly well.
Wasn’t this meant to be the outcome of the Northern Ireland problem at one stage ?
[And before anybody gets sarcastic, the issue there was supposed to be Catholics outbreeding Protestants in the long run.]
You are not factoring in immigration, which is very significant for Israel.
Is it? I’d be curious to see recent figures.
The heyday of Russian Jews moving in is past. Some Israelis are moving out too. Sure some ultra-religious move in too, but not in massive numbers. There are some Jewish converts who move in, including some groups who have identified themselves as Jews for generations but who Israeli law does not recognize as Jewish until formal Orthodox conversion … which is not easily acomplished … but not huge numbers.
Hey Bryan, I call it as I see it. The observation that Israeli self-interest is best served by providing well for its Arab populus is not intuitively obvious to many.
If Israel’s losing the Battle of the Wombs, the U.S. had better give them military womb-aid now!
Let’s fly over the areas with the highest Palestinian population-density and drop huge loads of condoms on the populace.
Let’s send the Israelis the medical supplies they most desperately need: fertility drugs!
Let’s gather up all the old Chevrolets with enormous back seats that we can find, and ship them over to Israel. We may have to help them build thousands of drive-in movie theaters, too, but this investment in infrastructure will pay for itself many times over!
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/completingfertility/RevisedFriedlanderpaper.PDF
Some numbers for within Israel proper in this paper.
Averaging out the secular Jews and the Ultra-Orthodox, Jewish birthrate is 2.85.
Averaging Moslem Arabs and Christian Arabs, Arab Israeli birthrate is 3.85.
The Ultra-Orthodox have a higher rate than the Moslem Arabs, BTW.
This paper speculates that compulsory primary education and elevated SES has reduced Arab birthrates from twice as high in earlier days, but that still inferior secondary educational opportunities and limited job potentials keep the Arab rate from further declines.
Some other interesting figures pieced together:
From the UN Arab Human Development Report: http://www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr/CompleteEnglish.pdf
Adult literacy rate overall in Arab countries is 59% with significantly worse literacy rates for women (45% for women; 69% for men)
The best Arab literacy rates (outside Israel) are Jordan and Lebanon, 86% and 85% respectively.
46% do not get beyond primary education.
From an Arab report critical of inequities in Israel, with special attention to women’s issues:
http://www.socialwatch.org/1999/eng/pdfpart2_99/israel.pdf
the figures for Arabs in Israel are, for Arab women, 88% literacy rate. Better than anywhere in the Arab world for men or women.
31% of Arab Israelis are not getting past primary education. Again, better than elsewhere in the Arab world. But inequitable compared to the resources available to other Israelis.
Again, Arab women fare better in Israel. They have voting rights. They are more educated than anywhere else in the MidEast. But it needs to be better for Israel’s own sake as well as for the sake of justice. Doing better than the Arab countries in education of Arabs and women’s rights is not much to be proud of. The inequities must be remediated.
But imagine if you will, an Arab Palestinian state that also educates women as well as men and with at least the same educational opportunities as available to Israeli Arabs. Would the Palestinian birthrate fall? Would the concept of educational opportunity for all, including women, spread throughout the Arab world?
If december had done it, it would have read:
Israel losing Battle of the Wombs - are Israeli abortion doctors sealing their own fate?
As far as I can tell, the Israelis are already outnumbered. There are over 200 million Arabs in the Middle East. Compare that to the 4.8 million Jews. And since basically, most of the Arabic world would like to see the Palestinians regain control of (at least part, if not all) of Israel, what’s keeping the Jews from being squashed?
U.S. interests.
If it weren’t for our gov’t’s undying support for the state of Israel, there would be no Israel.
Big deal, I says. It’s not like in two years if the Palestinian population overtakes the Israeli population they suddenly gain control of parliament or something.
If being outnumbered 42-1 in the region hasn’t taken the Jews out of power yet, what’s another half-million or so Palestinians going to do?
Even if the Palestinians do ultimately end up with more manpower within the borders of Israel, they still have no government proper. No organized army. Surrounding Arab nations, however, do. But they’ve been unsuccesful in any efforts to regain Palestine. Why? Again, U.S. support of Israel.
An increased number of babies won’t win them an organized state, no matter how many of them grow up to be suicide bombers or guerrilla fighters.
Happy
But, Happy, these citizens could lay down their arms, and demand a right to vote. It would funamentally change Israel as we know it.
But what happens when Arabs in Israel, proper, gain enough people to take a great amount of power in Israel. This is the problem, not necessarily the Palestinians outside of Israel, but those within it.
ISiddiqui has hit the nail on the head. While it’s certainly possible for even a tiny minority to maintain power for long periods of time (witness South Africa before apartheid was finally ended), it’s not possible to do so and still pretend to be a democracy.
Side question: how tough is it to amend the Israeli constitution? If the non-Jews within Israel eventually outnumber the Jews, could they turn Israel into, say, an Islamic state?!