Your Editorial says that following the Fatah/Hamas reconciliation deal and the collapse of negotiations, “one concern now is that Israelis will feel life can go on as usual, without a heavy price to pay” (‘Israeli-Palestinian Talks: End Of The Road?’ April 30). I would have thought that would be a cause for relief, not concern.
Your fear that Israel is facing a demographic time bomb is mistaken, because the Israeli Arab birthrate is declining and will soon reach parity with the Jewish birthrate. The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics has shown that the Jewish births in Israel have risen from 69 percent of the total in 1995 to 74 percent in 2006.
Moreover, the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG) discloses that fertility rates for Israeli Jews stand at 2.75 children per woman — the highest in the industrialized world — while the Arab birth rate is expected to drop to 2.4 per children women by 2025.
As for Palestinian Arabs, the AIDRP presented evidence to the U.S. Congress in 2006 showing that the Palestinian Authority (PA) deliberately misled the world, creating a ‘Million Person Gap’ –– inflating its population figures to total over 3.3 million, as opposed to the actual figure of 2.4 million. Moreover, Israel has relinquished nearly half of Judea/Samaria and all of Gaza, where 98 percent of the Palestinian Arabs live. Demographically, there is no issue.
National President Zionist Organization of America Philadelphia
