Demography Demonology Dead?

Israel, we have lectured to for five decades, cannot maintain its rule over Judea and Samaria because there are too many Arabs.  It started in government deliberations in the months after the 1967 Six Days War and continued until today.

Or yesterday.

Here's the Haaretz report by Amira Hass:

Lebanon Census Finds Number of Palestinian Refugees Only a Third of Official UN Data

A census in Lebanon finds 175,000 Palestinian refugees living in the country, while the UN figure put their number at 500,000

Fox News via Associated Press:

Census shows there are 174,422 Palestinians in Lebanon

BEIRUT –  The first official census of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon has revealed that there are 174,422 Palestinians now living in Lebanon, a figure almost two thirds less than previously estimated.

The Jewish Press asks:

 How Did Lebanon Misplace a Quarter-Million ‘Palestinians’?

A based-in-England Arab outlet spins it this way:

Palestinians in Lebanon less than half previous estimate, census shows

Palestinian leaders believe revelation of fewer Palestinians in the country should encourage politicians to improve their conditions

And further informs that the

UNRWA welcomed the census and will be able to better plan its programmes with the “updated and accurate information...Now we will have scientific data in hand,” 

And details the method:

The census was conducted by the Lebanese Central Administration of Statistics and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics under the umbrella of the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee, a group formed by the Lebanese government to study and propose policies related to the Palestinian population.

Hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese youth went from house to house with tablet computers to conduct the count, and the data was then linked to the location of the dwellings using a geographic information system, Director-General of the Lebanese Central Administration of Statistics Maral Tutelian Guidanian said.

The point is that

The census contradicts earlier estimates of more than 450,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

According to the official Palestinian Authority's population data, there were  2,935,368 Arabs residing in the territory they call the 'West Bank' at the end of 2016.

If we apply the Lebanese Theorem Principle, there are probably under 2,000,000 Arabs in that area in actuality.

We know that the data show that in 2015 24.4% of the West Bank population are refugees while 68.5% of Gaza Strip population are refugees.

We also know the emigration figures are high as findings show that 23.6% of youth (15-29 years) in Palestine desire to migrate abroad.

We know the birth rate and fertility is low.  We know the growth rate is low. 

And now via Lebanon we know they cheat at statistics.

It would seem the Demography Threat is not as bad as it is portrayed.

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Yoram Ettinger, who has been on this issue for years,  just wrote me that his data indicates but 1.85 million Arabs living in Judea and Samaria.

Yakov Faitelson is also exact in details on this matter and accuses the Pal. Authority of hiding data.

Ian Lustick who has jettisoned the Two-State Solution long ago ("Dead Plan Walking"), and again just recently, and who believes that the "paths to political decisions in Israel and the United States that could result in that outcome via negotiations are so implausible that the negotiations themselves end up protecting and deepening oppressive conditions", has argued that population data is being manipulated - by Zionists. Who is been manipulating really?

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Demography Figures

I read this:

RAMALLAH, December 29, 2014 (WAFA) – The number of Palestinians and Israelis is expected to reach about 6.4 million each by the end of 2016, with the number of Palestinians in historical Palestine (including Israel) amounting to a total of 7.2 million compared to 6.9 Israelis by the end of 2020, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics’ report released Monday.

...PCBS’s report stated that the number of Palestinians in historical Palestine estimated at 5.9 million by the end of 2013 is expected to exceed the total number of Israelis by the year 2020 if the current growth rates persist.

...A total of 4,550,368 million Palestinians live in the West bank...Meanwhile in Gaza...around 1,760,037 Palestinians remain...


a. According to Yakov Faitelson, the number of Arabs in Judea and Samaria is 1.5 million.

Moreover,

According to the CIA FACTBOOK publications, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria fell down to 2.83 child per woman in 2014, compared with 5.70 child per woman in 1994. The TFR of Arabs had reduced more than by 50% in less than one generation.

b. According to Yoram Ettinger,

in Judea and Samaria, there are 1.7 Arabs as of 2013 (probably 1.74 in 2014) and 1.4 in Gaza (probably 1.45 in 2014).

and more here.

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Not All Are Demographically Daunted

Many Jewish Israelis subscribe to the unfortunate demographic myth that high birth rates among Arabs and Ethiopians mean that they will soon outnumber Jews of other national and racial origins. But education and economic opportunity unfailingly drive birth rates down. If Israeli minorities were provided with the same educational and employment opportunities as other Israelis, their birth rates would decline to the same levels and their proportion in the population would stop increasing. Between the 1960s and 2004, as Arabs in Israel became more prosperous, educated and technologically connected, their birth rate fell by more than half, according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Indeed, the bureau’s figures for 2013 revealed that the Jewish birth rate is rising as the Muslim birth rate continues to decline. This is one important reason why Israel will continue to have a culture rooted in Judaism.

Patricia Marks Greenfield

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The Demonology of Demography

As reported:-

Israel's settler The population figures of Israelis in the occupied West Bank Land of Israel regions of Judea and Samaria increased by 4.2 percent in 2013, interior ministry figures show, as US-backed peace talks with the Palestinians falter over the settlement issue.

The number of settlers Israeli living in the West Bank rose to 375,000 in January 2014 from 360,000 at the same time the year before, according to statistics AFP obtained on Thursday from the ministry.

The figure excluded the nearly 200,000 settlers Israelis living in annexed Arab east the new post-1967 neighnorhoods in Jerusalem.

Well, as reported and redacted by me.

Have you seen the demography demon/threat lately?  The one Obama pushes, Kerry pushes, the NYTimes pushes, J Street pushes?  That Ian Lustick pushes?

They're such push-overs for false information that portrays Israel negatively.

Don't be influenced by them.

Oh, and that "nearly 200,000"?  It should be "just over 200,000".

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The Two-State Solution Question

The question that is on the table in relation to the future of Judea and Samaria is not the "Double D" - either lose Israel's democracy or via Arab demography lose Israel as a Jewish state - but rather this one, as expressed by Raphaella Segal here and slightly rephrased by me:

what is more manageable - a threat to Israel from annexing the area, which has 700,000 voting-age Palestinians, or the security threat stemming from a two-state solution with the topographical domination the new "Palestine" would control?

Ron Breiman, a friend, has published this today:

If we weren't slamming our heads into the wall but were rather opening them to new ideas, it would be possible to set the Jordan River as the border between Israel to the west and Jordan/Palestine to the east.  There are some who are scared of a demographic threat, claiming that if we don't withdraw from our land there will soon be an Arab majority west of the Jordan River. However, it is precisely for this reason that supporters of a Palestinian state should ensure that such a state won't absorb Arab refugees, who would cause there to be an Arab majority west of the Jordan River.

And there are those who utter the catchy slogan "them there, us here," referring to the Arabs who live in the land of Israel. This phrase is of course false and misleading. It means a "peace" based on the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Judea and Samaria and while keeping Israeli Arabs in Israel. Enlightened individuals and peace seekers should rule out ethnic cleansing, both of Jews and of Arabs. Anyone who advocates a ban on Jews living in Judea and Samaria isn't enlightened and isn't a peace seeker. Ultimately, such a "peace" would turn Israel into a non-Jewish and non-democratic country, and therefore devoid of peace.

There also other concerns that mitigate against the two-state solution, among them -

Will the Arabs recognize the Jewish national ethos?

Will they implement, until the arrangements are signed, peace consciousness educational programs to raise a new generation more willing to accept Israel and Zionism?

Will the "Palestinian identity narrative" of Israel's Arabs be rejected and reversed?

Will the PA's President Mahmoud Abbas drop the insistence that Israel must return fully to the June 4, 1967 borders and thus refuse to acknowledge that "territorial compromise" applies to both parties?

As for demography, which I have dealt with numerous times (here; and here, recently) this is from today:

The population of Israel is expected to reach 11.4 million people by the end of 2035, according to an updated forecast published by the Central Bureau of Statistics. According to a more optimistic estimation, it is possible that the population could reach 12.4 million people.
• 73% of the entire population will be Jewish by 2035
• 23% of the entire population will be Arab by 2035

...[out of a total of] 8.8 million. The Arab population will be 2.6 million -- 23% of the entire population (nearly one in every four Israelis). There will be 8.3 million Jews by the end of 2035 (73% of the entire population); the Muslim population will be 2.3 million (20% of the population); the Druze will count for 1.6% of the population with 185,000 people; and Christian Arabs will account for 1.3% with 152,000 people.

and supports to prognosis of data.

Here is Jeff Jacoby, writing about The myth of the inevitable Jewish minority in Israel in the Boston Globe:

Yasser Arafat liked to say that the ultimate weapon in his arsenal against the Jewish state was “the womb of the Arab woman.”...

...As the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics began its first census in the West Bank and Gaza in 1997, the bureau’s director, Hassan Abu Libdeh, assured The New York Times that the results would amount to nothing less than “a civil intifada.” In 2005, the bureau predicted that Jews would be a minority in “historic Palestine” (i.e., west of the Jordan River) by 2010. Now it says the tipping point will come by 2020.

Don’t count on it.

Arafat’s boast notwithstanding, Palestinian women, like women throughout the Muslim world, are bearing far fewer children than they used to. Within Israel proper, the birth rate among Muslims has trended steadily downward and stands now at 3.5 children per woman. It is even lower for Palestinians in the West Bank — just 2.91, according to the CIA Factbook...But while Palestinian birth rates have dramatically declined, Jewish birth rates in Israel have been heading up. Israel now has the highest fertility level of any modern industrialized nation. The fertility gap between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, a yawning 5.8 in the 1960s, is just 0.5 today. Defying longstanding conventional wisdom, writes former Israeli diplomat Yoram Ettinger, it is Israel’s Jewish population that is undergoing a remarkable surge, rising from about 80,000 births per year in 1995 to 130,000 in 2012. (The annual number of Israeli Arab births has held steady at between 35,000 and 40,000).

Don't gamble with Israel's future on unreliable statistics.

Or as Zehava Englard wrote:

Not only is the price of the One State Solution affordable, Israel can’t afford NOT to implement this plan of action.

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When Demography Was An Issue in ... 1971

Shmuel Katz...would have denounced recent comments by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he stated the need for a Palestinian Arab State is the only way to “prevent the eventuality of a binational state.” Here, Netanyahu is accepting one of the premier arguments of Israel’s left – that if the Arabs living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza do not get their own state, Israel will have no choice but to incorporate them as citizens into a Jewish one, and the Jews would then be overrun demographically. 

Shmuel rebutted the argument that the Arab birthrate was cause for concern in the 1971 pamphlet, “Will Appeasement Lead to Peace”, which he co-wrote with former Mapai Knesset Member Eliezer Livneh:

Already in the three years after 1967 the Jewish birthrate in Israel rose by 20 percent and it is still rising, thus narrowing the gap. Moreover, it is likely that Arab emigration — a striking feature of the nineteen years of Jordanian rule — will continue. At the same time there has been a sharp rise in Jewish immigration, the numbers are rising from year to year, and there are more candidates for immigration than Israel is at present capable of coping with — a condition, however, which is improving.

The net result of the operation of these factors since 1967 is that the numerical preponderance of the Jewish population has increased. In 1967 the ratio of Jews to non-Jews (Arabs, Druzes, and others) throughout the territory held by Israel was 63.2 per cent to 36.8 per cent. Today [early 1971] the ratio is 66 percent to 34 percent. There is no doubt that the Jewish people has the necessary resources, spiritual and material, to meet the challenge of the Arab natural increase.

 
Shmuel’s predictions over 40 years ago are borne out today. As former Israeli Ambassador Yoram Ettinger, perhaps the leading voice against the demographic doomsayers, writes recently, “In 2013, in sharp contrast with projections issued by the demographic establishment, there is a 66 percent Jewish majority (6.3 million Jews) in the combined area of Judea, Samaria (1.66 million Arabs) and pre-1967 Israel (1.65 million Arabs), compared with a 40 percent Jewish minority in 1948 and a 9 percent Jewish minority in 1900.“ 


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More Reactions to Lustick's Article on Demography

I have been getting feedback from those more knowledgeable in demographic studies and I am sure there will be a proper academic response to Ian Lustick's article I posted here.  Yaakov Faitelson has already reacted with a long note (he had already been working on an article which will be published soon).

Here are some thoughts I have been receiving (they are anonymous simply because the issue is not one which can be countered in 300 words):



a) while Lustick notes "bias" of Ettinger and others, his own political bias, such as in these throwaway remarks - "Realizing that most Israeli Jews fear, suspect, or loathe Arabs" and "Their response was to exploit opportunities to expel and prevent the return of up to three quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs from the territory that became the State of Israel in 1948", are quite apparent.


b)  he engages in delegitimization of his opponents as Ettinger and Sohar before even considering their arguments by highlighting their 'right wing credentials'.  Left wingers escape being identified as such (for they have no political bias?). Palestinian statistics are presented - by the Palestinian Authority officials and pro-Pal. enthusiasts - as facts and we are to assume that they are rock solid with no doubts because those researchers are neutral, correct?


c) he accuses those he opposes as having no background in demographics, an odd argument. Actually, any smart person with an inquiring mind and reading comprehension can be fairly self-taught.  His critical tone is unbecoming.


d) although he credibly argues against ZSW's methodology, in the end, he does concedes that ZSW were at least partially correct in that there was a population gap. Thus, extensive fact-checking is required which means we really are unsure as to what the real numbers are and what they mean and what they point to.


e) a real problem of his is that statistics aren't cited much after 2006 and most of the articles and other data he bases himself on are from 1993-2006. Since the demographic situation undeniably has steadily improved in favor of the Jewish population since 2006, it could be argued that the approach of the  ZSW is on the mark.



f)  The fertility rates are truly important. Their effect is delayed but they are important for the future.  Yes, youthfulness of the population must be taken into account. But this, ultimately, works in the Jews' favour. Consider the graphs here and also here.  At first glance, the graph relating to the Jewish population displays aging and that of the Arabs shows a youthful character, the bottom of both graphs shows the opposite trend. Note, the ratio is roughly 3:1 Jews in the 0-4 age bracket. The bars are continually "bubbling upwards" and in 20-30 years time, the 0-4 age bracket will be in the fertile region. What the fertility rate is at that time will matter a great deal. More pressingly, the bulge in the Arab pyramid is from 5-14; thus, the fertility rate in ~5-15 years is also important, and it will decide how strongly the bulge Lustick mentions will be able to perpetuate in future generations. Assuming current trends, it won't matter much.


g)  The problem with Lustick's argumentation is that he makes his "technical analysis" of Ettinger-Zimmerman Project on the basis of  wrong argumentation by heavily quoting heavily Arnon Sofer and others who made their analysis based on statistic data extrapolated to the future. He brought nothing new based on his own research based on independent data base sources, while ignoring the real development of the demographic trend and therefore his conclusions do not hold water. 

He doesn't recognize the professionalism of such well known and awarded demographer as Nicolas Eberstadt and tries to diminish the quality of his expertise by claiming that Dr. Eberstadt is specializing on the Far East which is simply not true.

 
g) in contrary to Lustick, Faitelson did make his own independent analysis taking in consideration the dynamic development of the statistical data running through the time.  His findings were shown to be correct from years ago especially his point that the Arab Fertility Rate will start to decline towards convergence with the Jewish in the first two decades of the 21st century.  This is now recognized also by Dr. Ahmed Hleihel, the Head of the Demographic department of the ICBS, who is a decent professional researcher and honest scientist and an Israeli Arab so his opinion carries even more weight than of the Jewish one.


 
f)  what most be given great weight is that the demographic trend in the Land of Israel favors the Jews. Prof. Roberto Bachi's projection from 1972 has had to be postponed some 10 times already as to when the Jews will become a minority, from 1990 and up to 2028.  If his projection was consistently wrong, what does this mean? It could mean that the time favors the Jews as shown for the last 26 years.



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Faitelson Responds to Lustick on the Demographic Threat

At this previous post, I related to the new article on demography in Israel, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, that is, the state of Israel as well as the regions of Judea and Samaria.  Written by Prof. Ian Lustick, it seeks to undermine the recent prognostications that the so-called "Demographic Threat", that a Jewish minority is the result of the continued administration of the territories, and for sure their incorporation into Israel proper.

I alerted some of the persons involved and one, Yaakov Faitelson, has sent me the following article as a first response.

I am proud to serve as a platform for the discussion of the issue.

________________________________

I will not respond on the same level of the “quality” of Ian Lustick. He  continues simply to use and to manipulate the same sources such as Arnon Sofer, Sergio DellaPergola and others, despite the fact that their demographic projections and estimates published during last 30 years had crashed to the dust. 

Twenty-six years ago  I was cited by Dan Petreanu in his article "Demography: Men or Myth" published by Jerusalem Post  in August 16, 1987: "But neither Arab population, says Faitelson, will become a majority, because the decline in the Arab death rate in the administrated territories will soon reach a plateau, whereas their birth rate will continue to fall. Thus, their rate of natural increase will decline while that of the Jews will increase slightly". And further: "Faitelson predicts that the Israeli Arabs rate of increase will eventually reach that of the Jews - today about 1.4 per cent - around the first decade of the next century, followed about 10 years later by that of the Arabs in the territories".

The natural increase of the Jews in 2012 was 1.52% which was 14.3% higher than in 1987 and  27.4% higher than in 2000. The Arabs natural Increase was 2.19% which was 21% lower than in 1987, but 33.7% lower than in 2000. The number of the Jewish Live Births was 125,492 in 2012, 77.2% higher than in 1987, while there were 40,080 Arab Live Birth, 58.2% higher than in 1987.

But here one must take a look at the dynamics of the demographic development: the number of the Jewish Live births in 2012 was  36.5% higher than in 2000, while it was  1% lower for the Arabs. Actually, the number of the Arab Live birth has stabilized at around 40,000 during all the past12  years. The Arab Baby Boomers of the 1960s are about 50 years old already. It means that Arab Death rate started to grow, accelerating it towards the average level of the Jewish Death rate. It will sharply influence the Arab Natural increase rate making its decline even faster in the coming years. 

During the same period , the Jewish Natural Increase rate had been stabilized  for the last 45 years and in 2012 it is almost the same, 1.52%, as it was in 1962 which was 1.55%. Taking into consideration the continuous annual addition of immigrants to the development of the Jewish Natural Increase will explain why the heralded “Demographic Doomsday” never came about and , I claim,definitely will not come in the future.

Taking in consideration the demographic development in Judea, Samaria and Gaza Strip, I usually compare the estimates of the Palestinians themselves and of the US Census Bureau.
It is clear for everyone, that all demographers agree that the Arab growth rate is decreasing steadily. I believe that even Lustick had paid attention to such well-known fact. Even while the US Census Bureau takes as their estimate that the migration balance from the Judea, Samaria and Gaza strip as 0, it still shows the decrease of the natural increase in Judea and Samaria from 3.01% in 2002 to 2.05 in 2012, 16.7% less in one decade. The  picture is similar regarding the Gaza Strip - 14.5% less, from 3.58 to 3.06.

In comparison,, the natural increase of the Arabs of Israel declined by 26.8%, while the Jewish natural increase rose by 27.5% during the same time period of 2002-2012.

The Head of Demographic Department of the ICBS, Dr. Ahmad Hleihel, had admitted that the ICBS assumptions regarding  demographic developments of the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel were mistaken.  "Ma'ariv" journalist Rotem Sela quoted him in his article published on 27.7. 2011:  "We were mistaken in assessing the increase in the Jewish fertility, and on the other hand, the rate at which Arab fertility declined. I believe that the Arab population's fertility will continue to fall in the direction of 2-3 children".  This conclusion of Dr. Hleihel actually confirmed the conclusions I made and published already 26 years ago.

Now regarding  Aliya and emigration.

In the same Dan Petreanu article, Arnon Sofer was quoted saying as follows: "So, without even considering future birth rates, to make up one percentage point today we need an additional 170,000 Jews. Who among us really expects that sort of Aliya in the near future". 

As everyone can understand now, even Lustick, I can suppose, the facts were quite different. The failure to properly assess the ongoing developments in the Soviet Union of 1987 was a cause of huge surprise not only for Sofer...

Actually, the same failure of understanding of the current potential of Jewish Aliya  can be seen now, if  the rising new wave of the anti-Semitism in Europe, Latin America, etc., combined with the world economic crisis, is ignored or downplayed.

Attempting to manipulate the numbers of the Jewish emigrants from Israel is also a failure. According to the ICBS the emigration rate from Israel is now on the lowest level in all 65 years of the Jewish State existence.

Some remarks regarding Lustick's argumentation as to  my forecasts from 2007 for the possible growth of the Jewish population in Israel and the Jewish Aliya to Israel till 2050 are in order.

I presumed that the natural increase will continue to be 1.27% and, together with  Aliya numbers, the annual increase would have been 1.42%.

Lustick wrote that my assumption made in 2007 that there will be Aliya of 10,000 Jews annually till 2050 is not real. Let's see what really happened during the years of 2007-2012.

The annual increase of the Jewish population was 1.83%, which was a 28.9% increase, higher than my own assumption.

The total number of new immigrants during this time period was about 86,000 or more than 14,300 annually. That represents a figure 43% higher than my assumption.

In my paper published by the IZS I had predicted that the Jewish population of Israel in 2012 will reach 5,878,820 people and  the Arab population would be 1,614,415. Actually, in 2012 there were 6,014.100 Jews (a 2.3% increase above that  projection) and 1,648,400 Arabs (2.1% more than what I projected). In any case, my mistake was just little bit higher than 2%, which is only a half of the 4%  statistical error factor.

I will not relate to  the facts about the increased Jewish population. It appears to be more a moral problem for such persons like Lustick than a demographic problem of the Jewish State. It is enough for me that Prof. Sofer who only in 2002 talked about the demographic danger caused in State of Israel by”Arabs, Russians and Moldavian prostitutes", has changed his opinion and now declares that the members of the mixed families of the repatriates from the Former Soviet Union are a part of the Zionist majority in the State of Israel. It took him a lot of time and rivers of the young soldiers’ blood spilled on defense for Israel to understand it. 

However, also Prof. Sergio DellaPergola has different approach now to the definition ‘who is a Jew. As he had written in his paper, "Jewish Demographic Policies", published by the Jewish People Policy Institute in 2011: "It seems that ways must be found to include and ‘embrace’ this population within the Jewish community, especially those who have integrated into the country, and whose children are in the school system and are serving in the IDF".   It couldn’t be better stated.

And finally, for such a short note, let's now see what the Arab demographers, researches and journalists say when they work for the international institutions and what they are publishing in Arabic. Here just some examples from many:

According to Mustafa Khawaja,Director of Jerusalem Statistical Department, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics: "The net balance of arrivals and departures for the West Bank in the period 1967 to the present has been consistently negative, with an average of about 10,000 leaving annually… the main reason for migration by Palestinians relates to the economic factors resulting from the political instability and the infighting between the Palestinian parties" as quoted from his work published by the Robert Shuman Centre for Advanced Studies, San Domenico di Fiesole (FI): European University Institute, 2010.

Khaled Abu Toameh, "80,000 Palestinians emigrated from territories since beginning of year (a rise of 50 percent compared to last year), a senior Palestinian Authority official said Monday. The official, who asked not to be named, told The Jerusalem Post another 50,000 Palestinians are now trying to leave through the Jordan River bridges and the Rafah border crossing".  Jerusalem Post, Aug. 26, 2002.

The Egyptian journalist Bissan Edwan, published on April 16, 2004 the article in Arabic  "Demographic bomb in Israel and the self-deception" this data: "According to Jordan statistics, at least 150 thousand Palestinians left the West Bank during the intifada years from 2000 to 2002 and did not return". 

Bissan Edwan comes to the conclusion that the economic situation in the Palestinian Authority causes the possibility of new waves of large emigration as it had happened during the Intifada. Bissan Edwan writes that the demographic factor will play a limited and marginal role in the future of the conflict. She mentions that the Jewish net migration was able to maintain a significant Jewish majority of the population in Israel and that the results of the higher Palestinian natural increase vanish because of the high rates of emigration, the increasing mortality and the successful programs of birth control that help lowering Palestinian fertility rates.

There are a lot of facts that I bring in my papers to establish my case based on the international official Data bases and the researches of the Arab and other demographers, including the PCBS. It is difficult to somebody who isn't looking for truth to follow it. But this is an acknowledged fact by every objective researcher that the Arab and Muslim fertility is fast decreasing, not only in the Land of Israel, but across the countries in the Middle East. Another fact is that Jewish fertility is stabilized with some significant increase (temporarily, in my opinion, until, that is, the large part of the Jewish population will be finally absorbed in the Israeli nation) during the 2 last decades. The Arab TFR in Judea and Samaria is already equal to the Jews in general, the Israeli Arabs TFR is decreasing towards convergence with Jewish and even the Arabs of Gaza Strip are on their way to the same direction.

It needs a higher moral level and integrity to be able to accept these facts than Prof. Lustick owns.

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Just Who Is Manipulating Demographic Data?

I have many blog posts here on the issue of demography or, to politically phrase it: should Israel remove itself from the territories of Judea and Samaria because if we keep them, the Arabs will outnumber us and either we'll be forced to deny them the vote, the democracy spin, or simply, they'll swamp us and we'll lose the Jewish character of Israel.

A recent one noting the issue of fertility.  Another.  An older one on decline.  Relating to a mainstream media report.  Another from 2009.  There are many more.  Another blogger.

Yesterday, I posted on an academic article by Ian Lustick (and here's an earlier treatment dealing with the "reinvigoration of the demographic issue").  It's main thrust is that there is revealed a

complex but systematic manipulation of data 

and that exposes 

the political objectives and drastic distortions of the campaign.

If Lustick worked on this article for years, I don't think a few days is enough time to adequately refute his charge.  Also, I am not a specialist in demographics (although I am not sure Lustick is).

But I asked around and for a start, consider these points:

a) why did he ignore Yaakov Faitelson's  "The Politics of Palestinian Demography". That article's research is very heavily based on... Arab sources, including the Palestinians, Jordanian and Egyptian, as also on US CBS, the UN and World Bank Data sources. 

b)  also ignored is the research of "Metzilah Center" demographers, Dr. Uzi Ravhon from Hebrew University and Gilad Malach, who came to the same conclusion in their work, "Demographic Trends in Israel", published in December 2008 and then in April 2009 that the Jewish population element in Israel will start to increase after 2030: 

"We have seen that the long-term projection flowing from existing trends allows the Jewish majority to hold firm at around 75 percent of the population"

and

two contrasting views — that Israel is inevitably moving toward binationalism and that the current trends are not threatening the preservation of the Jewish majority — should be revisited and assessed with greater caution.

c)  the demographic processes and ongoing trends in the Land of Israel for the last 100 years is working in the benefit of the Jewish population. 

d)  over the last 20 years, Arab demography is in the collapse stage whereas Jewish  demography is in the stage of the stabilization. 

e)  Prof. Arnon Sofer, who, previously was quite negative, and foresaw what didn't occur, (and note: "in an article published on July 6, 1987 in the newspaper "Yediot Ahoronot". The title of this article quoted Professor Arnon Sofer: "In 2000: Israel will be not Jewish". One year after this publication Professor Sofer was quoted once again in the title of another article published on August 2, 1988: "In 20 years from now, we'll beg for the Jewish autonomy in the country" and in 2001, was quoted so: "“If we continue with the status quo, with no decision-making, we have only another 15 years...If we talk about Greater Israel, we’re a minority from this year on” - just to show how predictions can be problematic) is now recognizing hat there is no demographic danger for the Jewish majority in the State of Israel while including for the first time the members of the Jewish families who were not defined as a Jews into the Zionist majority, isn't significantly in the Lustick study (he is mentioned in passing in note 3, sourced in Gadi Taub's blog??).  Actually, Soffer is more concerned about religious, and specifically Haredi Jews.

f)  he also never cited Dr. Ahmed Hleihel, Director of Demography Sector at Israeli Central Bereau of Statistics, who indicated that there was a mistake in the assessment of Jewish fertility, and on the other hand, the rate of Arab fertility decline. He came to believe that the Arab population's fertility will continue to fall in the direction of 2-3 children and this

in 2009, for the first time, the fertility rate of Jewish women in Jerusalem (4.3) was higher than the fertility rate of Arab women (3.9) and was even higher than that of Muslim women (3.9).

and this

The number of births among ultra-Orthodox women has dropped by 15 percent - from a 7.6 average per woman to 6.5 in the past decade and the average birth rate among Muslim women dropped from 5.6 births in the early 1980s to 3.63 in the second half of the last decade, the report found.

g)  there's also this missing: "in 2010, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the Jewish woman resident in the Jewish communities throughout Yesha was 5.18 versus 3.12 of an Arab woman in the the same area (the WB).  And the natural increase of the Jewish population there was 3.54% that year versus 2.13% for the Arab population.  That's the natural increase per 1000, from CIA World Factbook 2010."


Who is manipulating data?
 
More to come.

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A Droping Fertility Rate or, What Demography Threat?

Reuven notes:

The CIA World Factbook has updated its pages...
The total fertility rate in the area the Factbook calls the West Bank has dropped to 2.91 children born per woman; last year it was 2.98. (Click here, then click on the "People and Society" section to see this year's figure; see here for the historical figures.)
They have also recorded a smaller drop in the fertility rate in Israel: from 2.67 last year to 2.65 this year.
In Gaza, too, it has dropped - from 4.57 to 4.41.
The net result is a narrowing of the fertility gap between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, in particular between Israel and the areas of Judea and Samaria which are now just 0.26 children per mother apart.
I don't know how the CIA gather their figures, or why they differ significantly from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics' figures (which, in 2012, gave a total fertility of 3.00 in Israel), but I assume they're based on on real-life data and not just on mathematical models. As I have noted previously, it's unclear if the World Factbook includes the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria (who have a very high fertility rate) in the West Bank figures or the Israel figures.

See, also, a previous post of his on this. 


Coincidentally, I have just received a new article on this subject:

"What Counts is the Counting:  Statistical Manipulation as a Solution to Israel’s 'Demographic Problem'”
Seven years ago, heightened anxieties in Israel about an Arab threat to Israel’s Jewish majority triggered an influential campaign to change perceptions of who is winning the demographic battle. Proposals to annex 60% or more of the West Bank are based in part on its success in persuading many Israelis and others of the nonexistence of 1 to 1.5 million “missing” Palestinians. This campaign’s estimates of Arab and Jewish population for 2004 and beyond are subjected to close scrutiny, revealing complex but systematic manipulation of data and exposing the political objectives and drastic distortions of the campaign.

Is the CIA manipulating data?

I will read the article and see what I can do.

Stay tuned.

See this recent note.

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Clarifying Demography or, What Threat?

From Yoram Ettinger's latest:

Defying demographic projections

 

in sharp contrast with the demographic establishment's projections, there is a 66 percent Jewish majority (6.3 million Jews) in the combined area of pre-1967 Israel (1.65 million Arabs) and Judea and Samaria (1.66 million Arabs), compared with a 40% Jewish minority in 1948 and a 9% Jewish minority in 1900. The Jewish majority enjoys a robust tailwind of high fertility rates and immigration, which could produce an 80% Jewish majority by 2035.

 

These 6.3 million Jews (including 350,000 new immigrants not yet recognized as Jews by the rabbinate) expose the systematic errors made by leading demographers...In defiance of demographic projections, Israel's Jewish fertility rate of three births per woman is higher than any Arab country's other than Yemen, Iraq and Jordan. The modernity-driven downward trend of Muslim demography is highlighted by Iran's fertility rate of 1.8 births per woman, Saudi Arabia's 2.3 and Syria's and Egypt's 2.9...Israel's Jewish-Arab fertility gap has been reduced from six births in 1969 to half a birth in 2012. Moreover, the fertility rates of Jewish and Arab women in their 20s and 30s — in Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel — has converged at three births per woman, with the Jewish rate trending above — and the Arab rate trending below — three births. Furthermore, the fertility rate of Israeli-born Jewish women is already above three births per woman.

In defiance of the demographic profession, the annual number of Israel's Jewish births has surged by 62.5% from 80,400 in 1995 to 130,000 in 2012, while the annual number of Israeli Arab births has been sustained at around 40,000 annually. In 1995, there were 2.3 Jewish births for one Arab birth; in 2012 there were 3.2 Jewish births for one Arab birth...

Anyone suggesting that Jews are doomed to become a minority west of the Jordan River is either dramatically mistaken or outrageously misleading.

And, on the other hand, there was this:-

First, peace is necessary.  (Applause.)  I believe that.  I believe that peace is the only path to true security.  (Applause.)  You have the opportunity to be the generation that permanently secures the Zionist dream, or you can face a growing challenge to its future.  Given the demographics west of the Jordan River, the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.  (Applause.)  That is true.

That was US President Barack H. Obama.

Oh, well.

So much for the future.

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Negative Net Emigration

(Thanks to IMRA)

JERICHO, January 1, 2013 (WAFA) – An estimated 1.3 million people crossed Allenby bridge with Jordan in both directions during 2012, a police report said Tuesday.

It said the number of people leaving the West Bank was 30,000 more than those entering it from the Jordanian side.

Well, as for net emigration rate ("Net migration rate is the difference of immigrants and emigrants of an area in a period of time, divided (usually) per 1,000 inhabitants (considered on midterm population). A positive value represents more people entering the country than leaving it, while a negative value mean more people leaving than entering it), I really am not qualified to make a judgment.

The number 30,000, I think, is too small to reflect on for this year.  Or is it?

After all, people who overstayed tourist visa/family visit permission could have been a factor.

Most importantly, it is negative.

Demographic threat do I hear?

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