Growth
trends and population forecasts have played a significant role in the political
landscape of the Middle East, especially over the thorny question of Israel and
the disputed territories. The notion that the Jewish majority of Israel is in
danger of being swamped by Arab fertility has repeatedly been used as a
political and psychological weapon to extract territorial concessions from the
Israeli government. In September 2010, U.S. president Barack Obama referred to
the so-called “hard realities of demography” that threaten the survival of the
Jewish state.
Such a
conclusion is wrong. Analysis of long-term demographic developments leads to
quite the opposite conclusion: In the long run, a strong Jewish majority, not
only in the state of Israel—as this author projected almost twenty-five years
ago and the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics recently reaffirmed—but also in
the Land of Israel is quite possible.