Arab Births Down - Jewish Births Up: No Demographic Threat

Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, IsraelNationalNews.com, 13.11.07 3 Kislev 5768. "Anyone contending that there is a demographic machete at the throat of the Jewish State is either drastically mistaken or outrageously misleading!" Recent statistics presented by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) and the World Bank confirm the assessment of the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG) that the demographic balance in the Land of Israel is not a threat to the Jewish majority at all; in fact, predictions of Arab population growth in the Palestinian Authority have been grossly overstated, with Jewish birthrates in pre-1967 Israel consistently increasing and Arab birthrates consistently dropping. "Israel's demographic establishment has been dramatically wrong: Demography constitutes a strategic asset, not a liability." "Since 1948, the ICBS has tended to under-project Jewish fertility, over-project Arab fertility, ignore the scope of Arab emigration and minimize the scope of potential Jewish Aliya (immigration). It has also overlooked the fact that Jewish demography has not been normative, and certainly not Western in nature. Moreover, the ICBS ignored the fact that Jews and Arabs have reacted differently to unusual economic and military developments."