views
essay
Demographic Deceit
Fudging population numbers discredits Palestinian cause.
O
ne moment, the
Knesset, Israel’s
parliament, sits
stunned by Arab claims
that there’s population
parity between Jews
and Arabs west of the
Jordan River. The next,
such demographic
Robert Sklar
Contributing Editor
saber-rattling is author-
itatively rebuked.
Still, the matter of
demographics within
the contours of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains.
The Palestinian Authority governs
Palestinian-led areas of the West Bank
via Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction.
The P.A. claims 3 million Palestinian
Arabs live in the West Bank, made up
of the biblical Jewish lands of Judea
and Samaria. That number, along with
Israel’s 1.8 million Arab citizens and the
2 million Palestinian Arabs who live in
the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, puts the
total Arab population west of the Jordan
River at 6.8 million.
The number of Jews in the State of
Israel and the Israeli settlements in the
West Bank totals 6.99 million, according
to Jewish Virtual Library.
In this demographic orbit, the Jewish-
Arab population difference is less than
200,000.
ANOTHER TAKE
Yoram Ettinger, a
respected Israeli
demographer, diplomat
and expert on U.S.-
Israel relations, insists
there are only 1.85
million Palestinians in
the West Bank today
along with 1.5 million
Yoram Ettinger
Palestinians in Gaza.
Ettinger brings cred-
ibility as cofounder
of the American-Israel Demographic
Research Group (AIDRG), an indepen-
dent team of Israeli and U.S. research-
ers. The P.A. is widely known to be polit-
ically corrupt and to purposely cook its
data to accentuate the alleged hardship
imposed by Israel’s defense-driven mili-
tary controls.
On March 26, report-
ed Jerusalem Post col-
umnist Caroline Glick,
the Knesset’s Foreign
Affairs and Defense
Committee considered
P.A. population findings
as presented by two
Caroline Glick
Israeli government rep-
resentatives with over-
sight in the Palestinian
territories. Committee chair Avi Dichter
responded that the data suggest the
Palestinian population has tripled over
the last 25 years, something not sup-
ported empirically.
Way back in 2004, Glick reported, the
AIDRG audited P.A. data en route to con-
cluding the P.A. grossly exaggerated the
number of Palestinians under its purview
by 50 percent thanks to demographic
sleight of hand. Key to such fraudulence is
the claim of an annual immigration trend
of 14,000 people into the West Bank; in
fact, the AIDRG found the P.A. instead has
experienced high net annual emigration
out of the territory.
TROUBLING TRAIT
Demographic chicanery seems a way of
life for the P.A., leading to all sorts of practical
issues related to living conditions.
vative, in a March 29 column.
Glick, a Chicago native and Harvard
graduate who made aliyah to Israel in
1991, went on to assess whether the fear
of population parity west of the Jordan
River poses any “existential threat to
Israel’s Jewish character.” The P.A. “will
never make peace with Israel,” she main-
tained.
Glick favors Israel incorporating the
West Bank, which, she argues, would
still leave Israel with a two-thirds Jewish
majority.
In a March 20 blog on www.
TheEttingerReport.com, Ettinger indi-
cated, “In 2018, Israel is the sole Western
democracy and modern economy” that
“benefits from a tailwind of fertility and
net-migration, providing for sustained
economic growth with minimal foreign
labor.”
CHALLENGE LINGERS
Demographic chicanery seems a way
of life for the P.A., leading to all sorts of
practical issues related to living condi-
tions. For example, something as basic as
sufficient water and power can’t be prop-
erly allocated if the population total is in
doubt. For its part, Israel must shore up its
commitment to helping meet such basic
Palestinian needs.
Israel’s strategizing on behalf of ordi-
nary Palestinians dependent on Israeli
infrastructure support becomes tenu-
ous when the number of people who are
dependent is cooked.
“The problem is that even with the best
of intentions, without credible demo-
graphic data,” the Israeli government “can-
not make long-term plans,” wrote Glick,
an insightful, outspoken political conser-
It is “far from clear,” Glick wrote in back-
ing a one-state solution, why “the best
way to resolving Israel’s demographic
challenge is by establishing a hostile
Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria.”
Glick observed that such a state would
operate “alongside the terrorist-controlled
hostile Palestinian state in Gaza,” itself
a 2005 byproduct of demographic angst
on the part of then-Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon.
Glick believes a Palestinian state in
the West Bank would allow “hundreds
of thousands of foreign, hostile Arabs to
immigrate to its territory.” That would
“constitute an existential demographic —
and strategic — threat to the shrunken,
enfeebled Jewish state.”
In her estimation, the best solution to
Israel’s demographic challenge is, and
constitution (Israel doesn’t have one; it’s
legal system is based on a series of what
are known as “Basic Laws”), just as in
the American case, the fundamental val-
ues represented in the document influ-
ence and advise the law of the land, and
are as much guiding principles in 2018
as they were in 1948.
Israel’s 70th anniversary (marked on
its Hebrew date of the fifth of Iyar —
April 19 this year) is a time to celebrate
all that has been accomplished and
reflect on what yet remains to be done.
On this milestone, the indispensable
always has been, Jewish immigration, or
aliyah. A goal of bringing 500,000 Jews to
Israel over the next 10-15 years coupled
with Jewish fertility rates in Israel outpac-
ing Palestinian fertility rates in the West
Bank would assure at least a 75 percent
Jewish majority west of the Jordan River.
Israel may not ever enjoy productive
peace talks with the current P.A. govern-
ment, but that doesn’t mean such talks
would be improbable with a new govern-
ment in Ramallah. President Abbas is 83,
slowing and losing his grasp of influence
and reality.
The JN believes ultimately in a Jewish
state and a Palestinian state living side
by side as a partial solution to the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. Such a solution, initi-
ated by the U.S. or another responsible
peace broker, would have to emanate not
out of fear of an end to a Jewish major-
ity west of the Jordan River, but rather
from a peace-seeking P.A., a demilitarized
Palestinian state and a limited Israeli
military presence in the Jordan Valley to
assure safe, secure borders.
If authentic talks are to have any
chance of yielding impressive results, it
behooves Israel and the P.A. to build on
their joint security arrangement to derive
true official population data for the West
Bank.
Without reliable data, Israel and the
West must view the P.A. with suspicion
based on assumptions instead of on
the empirical data so vital to helping
a future Palestinian state, fragile as it
would be, not only take root, but also
flourish.
It’s time to clean up the mockery that
is Palestinian Authority demographics.
The Palestinian people, let alone the
world, deserve nothing less. •
commentary
continued from page 5
Like its American counterpart, read
today, Israel’s Declaration is not parti-
san or political. It speaks to the values
of the nation, whether one is on the
left or the right, religious or secular,
Jewish or non-Jewish.
While lacking the legal import of a
8
April 26 • 2018
jn
Declaration of Independence serves as a
touchstone and a source of pride, cohe-
sion and aspiration for the Jewish and
democratic State of Israel. •
Jonathan A. Greenblatt is CEO and National Director
of the Anti-Defamation League.