The Myth of the "Demographic Threat"

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.

Recess in Shiloh's boys school

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. Davka, extending full Israeli sovereignty over our Biblical Homeland and making it easier to build for Jews will increase the Jewish birthrate even further.

אין חדש Nothing New: Anti-Zionist "White Paper" Still Waving

The recent "scare statistics" claiming that too many Jews are being born in Israel and the Land can't hold them/us all so reminds me of the notorious Chamberlain-backed, yes, the same British leader who made the "deal" with Hitler, "White Paper" that severely limited Jewish immigration to the area that the League of Nations had mandated to Great Britain to turn into a Jewish State.

The White Paper of 1939 was a policy paper issued by the British government under Neville Chamberlain in which, among several key provisions, the idea of partitioning Palestine was abandoned. (It was also known as the MacDonald White Paper after Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary who presided over its creation).
The paper also provided (as alternative to partition) for creating an independent Palestine to be governed by Palestinian Arabs and Jews in proportion to their numbers in the population by 1939 (section I). Further: a limit of 75,000 Jewish immigrants was set for the five-year period 1940-1944 (consisting of a regular yearly quota of 10,000 and a flexible supplementary quota of 25,000); after 1944 the further immigration of Jews to Palestine would depend on permission of the Arab majority (section II); and restrictions were placed on the rights of Jews to buy land from Arabs (section III). (Wikipedia)

Today's Israel, even the populous coastal area is not all that densely populated. Actually, it is more than Gaza which is inaccurately called "densely populated" in order to mislead everyone. Ruthie Blum in the algemeiner has an excellent article refuting the recent distorted scare statistics.
Israeli Demography Expert Refutes Claim That Baby Boom Is Bad for Jewish State’s Economy

Responding to a report in i24 News on Saturday, according to which Israel’s “baby boom” spells bad news for the tiny country, Yoram Ettinger told The Algemeiner on Sunday that he is not surprised the doomsayers who used to predict Israeli’s downfall due to the Jewish-Arab birthrate ratio are now using evidence that disproves their theories to reach equally bleak conclusions.

“It is crucial to note that the trend of Jewish fertility is higher than that of Arab fertility,” said Ettinger, a consultant on U.S.-Israel relations and chairman of special projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. “In addition, among Jews in Israel, ultra-Orthodox fertility is decreasing, while secular fertility is exploding.” (algemeiner) 

Considering that most of the developed western world aka the advanced countries have a major problem due to their low birthrates and shrinking populations, they should be holding up Israel as an example of success. Maybe they are just jealous...

The only solution many European countries have nowadays is to open their gates to all sorts of immigrants which is causing major social and cultural changes along with violence in many cases. The unusually high percentage of male refugee/immigrants in their twenties and thirties who arrive without families is worrying and will no doubt cause much more serious trouble in the future.

Visiting the Jerusalem Bloomfield Children's Science Museum

Davka, Israel has the healthiest population growth rate in the developed world, and we should be very optimistic about the future of the State of Israel!

The "Demographic Threat," Another of Those Myths

Another "myth-busting" post.

Long before the Zionist Movement ever began, people have been fearing the "demographic threat" sic. I'd even say that the seeds for this fear are from Biblical Times when Moshe Rabanu, our leader Moses, sent the twelve tribal elders to stake out the Land as depicted in the Weekly Torah Portion Shlach. Ten out of twelve, the majority, aka democracy, insisted that the Land was populated by giants and they'd swallow us up. For that sin, obeying/believing in the "demographic threat," we were punished with wandering the wilderness for thirty-nine 39 years, instead of immediately entering the Land after the exodus from Egypt.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog, named after his esteemed grandfather, who had been Chief Rabbi, is a man of weak faith. He believes in the "demographic threat."

Israel needs to make a deal with the Palestinian Authority right away, it it wants to survive as a Jewish state, said Zionist Union/Labor Party head Yitzchak Herzog Sunday. Speaking at the Herzliya Conference, Herzog said that Israel faced a “demographic emergency,” and that within a decade there would no longer be a majority of Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. (Arutz 7)

Yes, Herzog is among those who believe in throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Herzog is among those terrified to live with Arabs and want a tiny Jewish only ghetto-like country as the State of Israel.

Ever since the Jewish People began returning in numbers and began to be the majority in portions of the Land of Israel, there have been fearmongers warning that there's a "demographic threat," and soon the Arabs will take over.

The truth is that it hasn't happened and won't happen as long as we behave as a sovereign independent state. The Arab birthrate has been dropping. I see it among my Arab customers in Yafiz, Sha'ar Binyamin. Many come to get baby and children's clothes. They tell me that ours are much better than what is available in their shops. I see that the families are small, and the children are often spaced far apart. They are ambitious for their children. That's a good sign. It reminds me of the famous Golda Meir quotation:

"Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us."

Golda Meir, 4th Israel Prime Minister,17 March 1969 – 3 June 1974
Statement to the National Press Club in Washington, D. C. in 1957,
as quoted in A Land of Our Own: An Oral Autobiography (1973) edited by Marie Syrkin, p. 242

Experts have been predicting the demise of the State of Israel due to "demographic threat" sic for as long has it has been in existance. If it was to happen, it would have happened already.