Okay, It's Unnatural

You'll find this map over at a NYTimes story on "settlements" -



Now, first the map and then I'll deal with the story (and another one in Haaretz).

The map is quite graphically neat but, in drawing these rather large circles in three shades around Jewish communities, the impression being conveyed is some sort of fungus extending itself into "Palestinian territory". If the same device were to be used on Arab settlements (by the way, where are they on the map? I can see but four Arab-populated cities where Jews cannot live), the map would have to be doubled in size just to fit Arab growth inside.

In Ariel, for example, have the residential construction are apartment buildings rather than one family homes. They go up, not out.

In that story are certain claims, like this one:

The settlers’ annual population growth, at 5.6 percent, far outstrips the Israeli average of 1.8 percent. But official data from the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel shows that while about two-thirds of that is a “natural” increase, as defined by settler births in relation to deaths, one-third stems from migration. There is also a disproportionately high level of state-supported building in the settlements compared with most regions of Israel.

And many critics of the settlement movement dispute the notion that settlers’ children have an absolute right to continue living in their parents’ settlement.

“A newborn does not need a house,” said Dror Etkes of Yesh Din, an Israeli group that fights for the rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories. “It is a game the Israeli government is playing” to justify construction, he said.

Growth is 5.6%.

But in Haaretz, I read

It doesn't take a demographer to deduce from Arieli's figures that "natural population growth" - even at a record 3.4 percent per annum (which is twice the national average among Jews)...

Growth is 3.4%.

Anybody explain?

Akiva Eldar asserts there in Haaretz that Jewish population figures across the Green Line are

the total: While 32 settlements (not including East Jerusalem) were established in the territories between 1967 and 1977, housing some 6,000 settlers, today 127 Jewish settlements can be found in the territories, alongside another 100 outposts, housing a total of 295,000 settlers

Isabel Kershner, also relying on Yesh Din's Dror Etkes reports in the NYTimes

The Israeli population of the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, has tripled since the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort started in the early 1990s, and it now approaches 300,000. The settlers live among 2.5 million Palestinians in about 120 settlements...According to the newly disclosed data, about 58,800 housing units have been built with government approval in the West Bank settlements over the past 40 years. An additional 46,500 have already obtained Defense Ministry approval within the existing master plans, awaiting nothing more than a government decision to build...Under international pressure, construction in the settlements has slowed but never stopped, continuing at an annual rate of about 1,500 to 2,000 units over the past three years. If building continues at the 2008 rate, the 46,500 units already approved will be completed in about 20 years.

Mixed up?

Maybe all the growth is unnatural. Unnatural in the sense that despite all the difficulties, the obstacles, the opposition, the terror, the pressure and whatnot, Jews have returned as revenants to their homeland and are building and growing.

And that, maybe superficially is unnatural. But, for Jews, it's the most natural thing to do.



Cross-posted here