Love of the Land: A man on a mission

A man on a mission

Former Israeli diplomat Yoram Ettinger out to debunk Israel’s ‘demographic myth’


Yigal Walt
Israel News/Ynet
01 January '10

When Yoram Ettinger speaks his voice booms with conviction and his eyes are alight – however, one is bound to be persuaded, not to mention stunned, mostly by the figures and conclusions he presents.

The former diplomat is part of an American-Israeli research team devoted to debunking prevalent demographic views regarding Israel’s future; the group’s ground-breaking research paints a much rosier picture, predicting a solid Jewish majority in the region for years to come.

The figures painstakingly collected and analyzed by Ettinger and his colleagues are startling, particularly for Israelis who for years have been warned of the demographic sword hanging over the Jewish State’s future. The data point to grossly exaggerated Palestinian growth predictions, statistical flaws resulting in inaccurate figures, steadily growing Jewish birthrates, and a dramatically declining Arab-Israeli birthrate.

Ettinger has been tirelessly presenting the research to leading Israeli policymakers and other influential figures nationwide. In an interview with Ynetnews he recounts some of the astonished responses he has encountered during his quest; this includes a taken aback Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who was presented with the data during the previous government’s term in office.

“Barak told me: ‘Until I saw this presentation I didn’t know the facts…it would be good to present it soon to (then-Prime Minister) Ehud Olmert and to (then-Foreign Minister) Tzipi Livni, who still don’t know the facts,’” Ettinger says.

(Read full story)

Related: In defiance of demographic fatalism

Love of the Land: A man on a mission

Love of the Land: In defiance of demographic fatalism

In defiance of demographic fatalism

Yoram Ettinger
Opinion/JPost
30 December 09

In 1948, prime minister David Ben-Gurion declared independence in defiance of demographic fatalism, which was perpetrated by the country's leading demographers. He rejected their assumptions that Jews were doomed to be a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, that a massive aliya wave was not feasible, that the Jewish fertility rate was declining to below reproduction levels and that the Arab fertility rate would remain the highest in the world, irrespective of modernity.

Instead, Ben-Gurion highlighted demographic optimism and aliya as top national priorities, coalesced a solid Jewish majority and planted the seeds that catapulted Israel to a Middle East power, highly respected for its civilian and military achievements.

In 2005, in capitulation to demographic fatalism, prime minister Ariel Sharon retreated from Palestinian terrorism, uprooting 10,000 Jews from Gaza and Samaria. Sharon abandoned his lifelong ideology of defiance, subordinating long-term strategy and security concerns to doomsday demography. Thus, he facilitated Hamas's takeover of Gaza and its ripple effects: slackened posture of deterrence, intensified shelling of southern Israel, the 2006 Second Lebanon War, 2008's Operation Cast Lead, the Goldstone Report and the exacerbated global pressure on Israel.

DEMOGRAPHIC ASSUMPTIONS have played an increasing role in shaping national security policy since 1992. But what if these assumptions are dramatically wrong? For example, since the beginning of annual aliya in 1882 - and in contradiction to demographic projections - the Jewish population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean has grown 238-fold, while the Arab population increased only sixfold. Since 1948, the Jewish population has increased almost tenfold, and the Arab population has expanded threefold.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: In defiance of demographic fatalism