True fertility rate numbers bust the idea of an Arab demographic threat.
by Yoram Ettinger

Jerusalem Post, 07/03/2011 23:11


We all know that Israel suffered the tragedies of the Yom Kippur War because
our leaders were locked into the "conceptzia" - the concept - that Egypt and
Syria would not attack the country because they knew they would lose. Our
leaders ignored reports of military formations and preparations and an
urgent warning from an informed neighbor.

Today, our leaders are again burdened with a concept that distorts their
policy determinations, which they cannot overcome despite the empirical
evidence shattering it.

This time the concept rests in the field of demography, namely that the Arab
total fertility rate (TFR) is much higher than and even a multiple of the
Jewish TFR.

The Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS) has just published the latest in
a series of studies by Yakov Faitelson on demographic developments. This
study, available in full at www.izs.org.il <http://www.izs.org.il/>  and
based on the empirical data of the Central Bureau of Statistics, shows that
Jewish TFR is steadily rising, while the Arab TFR is plummeting.

As noted in previous studies, this development conforms to classic
demographic patterns. When a developing population benefits from modern
medicine, infant mortality rates decline dramatically, life expectancy grows
rapidly, TFR initially remains constant, and the population explodes.

THE DEMOGRAPHIC reality of the 1960s, '70s and '80s has been imprinted on
the psyches and in the guts of our current leaders. In today's empirical
reality of a developing acculturated population, in which women receive
formal education, in which urbanization rapidly increases, and in which
other typical trends play out, the TFR sinks to a fraction.

This is today's reality that Faitelson documents and that our leaders fail
to absorb.

In 1965, Israeli Arab women were giving birth to 8.42 children on average.
In 2010, they were giving birth to 3.5. Put differently, the TFR gap between
the average Israeli Arab woman/ and her Jewish counterpart went from 4.95 to
0.6.

Studies by the American-Israel Demographic Research Group published by BESA,
Azure and AEI, among others, and endorsed by a highly prominent US authority
on demography, Nicholas Eberstadt, suggest that demographic developments on
the West Bank trail those among Israeli Arabs by about three years.
Remarkably the CIA reports that West Bank Arabs are more urbanized than
Israeli Arabs, and for 2009, it reports a lower TFR for West Bank Arabs than
the CBS reports for Israeli Arabs (3.12 vs. 3.5).

While Faitelson's argument projects current trends to 2030 and even 2050, it
is clear that even if the current trends flatten out, the Jewish and Arab
fertility rates will soon converge and may reverse so that Jewish fertility
exceeds Arab fertility. Even today, among 14 Middle East countries, Israel's
Jewish fertility rate ranks fifth.

Another part of the concept shattered by the IZS study is that the Jewish
growth in fertility is to a considerable degree a function of haredi
fertility rates. Wrong again. In fact, haredi fertility rates are declining
steadily (15.3 percent between 2001 and 2009) as the overall Jewish TFR
shoots upward.

THIS DEMOGRAPHIC concept is the most prominent justification by political
leaders, such as opposition leader Tzipi Livni, for the necessity and
urgency of a two-state solution. They claim that there will soon be a
majority of Arabs between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, so that a
two-state solution is necessary to ensure a Jewish majority and hence a
Jewish, democratic state.

From the evidence we have seen, this is wholly refuted by empirical data.
The American-Israel Demographic Research Group finds that there is a 66%
Jewish majority excluding Gaza and a 60% majority when Gaza is included.

The Institute for Zionist Strategies takes no stand on the Palestinian
dispute or proposed resolutions. Our mission is to develop a broad consensus
for maintaining a Jewish Zionist state inside whatever boundaries exist at
any given time, and we have earned strong supporters from both sides of the
divide. We also understand that other, non-demographic arguments are posited
for a two-state solution. But Faitelson's current study highlights the
absurdity of making national, even existential, decisions based on a concept
contradicted by facts. In 1973, it took a catastrophe to shatter the concept
of that day. This time, let's do it differently.

The writer is the founding president of the Institute for Zionist
Strategies. He practices law in Israel and the US.