The Myth of the “Demographic Threat” is older than the State of Israel.
…the Palestinian population living under Israeli control will soon surpass the Jewish population, and that Israel would be forced to abandon democracy if it wants to preserve its “Jewish character.” (972Mag)
One of the things I kept noticing when Arabs were a sizable portion of our Yafiz customers was the small size of their families. Not only did the Arab families who came to the Sha’ar Binyamin branch of Yafiz have fewer children than the local Jewish families, but the Arab businessmen visiting from Jordan and other countries to buy for their “kids back home” have only two or three of them.Israeli Jews, religious, traditional and even less so, are very child oriented and have more children than Jews in other parts of the world. And those who actually follow the numbers, the birthrates of Jews and non-Jews here in Israel see that the Jewish birthrate is rising while the Arab one is falling.
He {Yoram Ettinger} has found that the gap of the Jewish-Arab fertility rate (number of births per woman) has all but closed. Arab women in Israel had an average of 6 births more than their Jewish counterparts in 1969 – and this number has now shrunk a hundred-fold to 0.6. As of a year ago, the Arab rate was 3.17 births per woman, and 3.11 for Jews – and 3.4 when both spouses were Israeli-born.
Israel’s Jewish fertility rate exceeds the rate in most of the Muslim world. In Iran, for instance, women have an average of 1.83 births, and 2.12 in Saudi Arabia. Ettinger’s take is that the dropping Arab fertility rates reflect accelerated modernity, while “the Jewish fertility rate is bolstered by optimism, patriotism, attachment to roots and collective responsibility.”
The number of Jewish births in Israel has risen hugely over the last two decades, from 80,400 in 1995, to 136,000 last year – a 68% increase. Over the same period, the annual number of Arab births in pre-1967 Israel has stabilized at 40,000. In 1995, Jewish births constituted 69% of total births in Israel, but are now approaching 78%.
In Judea and Samaria, the Arab birth rate has dropped drastically, from 5 births per woman 20 years ago to 2.76 in 2015. (Israeli demographics working in Jews’ favor)
And when you add this to immigration and emigration statistics, you can easily see that we Jews are not in demographic danger. Those who still say that we must leave Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley for demographic reasons are not telling the truth.