[Aidan Fishman is currently studying his second yeqr in Internatioanl relations at University of Toronto]
Ever since its difficult birth in 1948, the Jewish State has struggled for its very survival against a variety of obstacles and threats. While the precise nature of these threats may change over time, the battlefronts remain eerily similar.
On the military front, Israel endured a genocidal uprising by the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 and invasion by Arab armies in 1948. It then miraculously defeated the Egyptian-Syrian alliance via surprise attack in 1967. Today, Israel is forced to reckon with the Islamic Republic of Iran and its bevy of long-range missiles and mad drive to acquire nuclear weapons.
With regards to the economy, the Jewish State dealt with crippling shortages soon after independence and suffered rampant hyperinflation for much of the 70’s and 80’s. Israel now seems to have finally found its economic footing in the tourism and high-tech sectors, notwithstanding latter-day woes such as the current housing crisis. However, Israel faces a myriad of other challenges, including the public relations war against media bias and the cynical BDS movement, along with diplomatic efforts at the UN and in other international forums.
Naturally, all of these issues inspire fierce political debate between Right and Left in the context of Israel’s raucous and vibrant democracy. Moreover, battle plans for the military, economic and diplomatic fronts need to be constantly re-evaluated to match shifting realities and pursue ever-changing objectives.
But there is one front that has been tragically ignored by Israeli politicians and has failed to spawn any intelligent public discussion geared toward finding solutions. It is the one front that goes straight to the heart of the Zionist project, and the one front that should foster a broad consensus from both Left and Right. I refer, of course, to the demographic front.
The notion of a democratic and Jewish State in the Land of Israel is predicated on the existence of a Jewish majority in that state, preferably a robust majority upwards of 70%. The concept of an imminent “demographic threat” or even “demographic time bomb” has been present in Israeli public discourse since the immediate aftermath of the Six-Day War, when Ma’ariv editorialist Samuel Schnitzer first sounded the alarm regarding rapid population growth amongst Arabs on both sides of the Green Line. Since then, there has been much hand-wringing, but precious little action.
Further compounding the problem is a lack of reliable data concerning Israeli and Palestinian demographics. On the one hand, we have Sergio DellaPergola, often described as “the leading authority on Jewish demographics all over the world”. He has repeatedly warned of an impending demographic nightmare in Israel, predicting in 1990 that there would be an Arab majority between the River and the Sea by 2015 at the latest. Even more alarmingly, a recent article in Egypt’s popular daily Al-Ahram claimed that “The Arabs of 1948 may become a majority in Israel in 2035, and they will certainly be the majority in 2048”.
However, there are those who dare to disagree with this grim analysis. In 2006, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies published a detailed report proving that the Palestinian Authority had overstated the Arab population beyond the Green Line by 1.2 million people. This was no accident – after all, the graver the perceived demographic picture in Israel, the more likely Israel is to surrender additional territories to the Palestinians. In a follow-up study, Israeli demographers asserted that in an absolute worst-case scenario, Jews would still constitute 56% of the population of Israel and the West Bank in 2025. Furthermore, they claimed that Jewish fertility rates are gradually outstripping those of Arabs, meaning that Israel’s long-term demographic future is secure. This more positive outlook has even led some members of the Israeli Right to believe that the West Bank can be safely annexed without inviting demographic doom.
Although the housing protests have come to overshadow all other issues, Israel needs to build happy, healthy and large Israeli families to fill its newly subsidized apartments. The first order of business should be to commission an independent, reliable census of the entire West Bank. Palestinian figures clearly can’t be trusted, and Israeli decision-makers need an accurate, objective forecast, not suspicious studies sponsored by political ideologues.
Israel’s legislators must take steps to win the demographic war, rather than wasting their time drafting counter-productive anti-boycott laws or deciding which West Bank outposts or Bedouin villages to demolish this week. Additional funds should be dedicated to facilitating aliyah from vulnerable Jewish communities such as those of France and Venezuela. Bureaucratic red-tape in the Rabbinate and Ministry of Immigration must be eliminated in order to allow groups claiming Jewish descent or conversion, such as the Lemba people of Kenya and the remnants of the Beta Israel in Ethiopia, to immigrate to Israel as soon as possible.
Targeted economic incentives can also encourage Israeli Jews to have more children by making child-rearing more affordable. As the recent “stroller march” of frustrated parents in Tel Aviv demonstrates, moves to facilitate child-rearing will not just secure the demographic front – they will also score political points. The much-maligned residential real estate tax should be waived completely for families with two or more children. Existing income tax deductions for mothers of children under 18 should be extended to fathers as well.
In accordance with the protestors’ demands, Israel must establish a free public daycare system, which will reduce the enormous costs of raising young children, as well as allowing parents to more quickly return to the workforce. Most importantly, the Israeli government should grant families a yearly 2% tax-back rebate for every additional child, capped at six children to prevent run-away growth in the Haredi sector.
Taking advantage of the already burgeoning Haredi birth rate is another key element of this battleplan. While families with ten or twelve children work wonders on the demographic front, they also threaten to suffocate the economy if most of these children mature into unemployed wards of the state. Programs designed to integrate Haredim into the army and the workforce must be accelerated, especially in the high-tech sector, where pilot projects have demonstrated significant potential.
Historically, Israel’s most important battles have been waged behind the scenes, away from the headlines. Constant drilling and memorization of target locations allowed Israel’s pilots to strike the decisive blow in the opening hours of the Six-Day War. Generous grants and tax breaks in the 1980’s laid the groundwork for Israel’s current high-tech renaissance. Bold moves to encourage aliyah and incentivize larger families will enable the Jewish State to seize the initiative on the demographic front. Failure to do so could put all of Israel’s wondrous accomplishments in jeopardy.
